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THE PRODUCTION OF REFUGEE SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE STATE DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IN

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES OF ISTANBUL SEHIR UNIVERSITY

BY

AYSEL ÖZTÜRK

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CULTURAL STUDIES

AUGUST 2017

ABSTRACT

THE PRODUCTION OF REFUGEE SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE STATE DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY

Öztürk, Aysel MA in Cultural Studies Thesis Advisor: Assist. Prof. Ebru Kayaalp August 2017, 69 pages

This study investigates how the subjectivities of Syrian refugees are produced in the state discourse. The mass wave of Syrian immigration starting from 2011 constitutes a milestone in the migration history of Turkey. This migration movement has two distinguishing characteristics: it is the largest mass migration Turkey has experienced in terms of the number of refugees and it has an acceptance policy of a religion-based discourse of philanthropy. However, the lack of structural regulations in the immigration policy concerning the refugees persists the historical trend observed in the past examples. In this respect, the positioning of each particular migration wave and the production of the refugee subjectivities in the state discourse present a worthwhile area of study.

The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the constitution of the subjectivities of Syrian refugees in various contexts and imaginaries crafted/emerging within the state discourse. In this respect, this thesis focuses on the discourses of politicians affiliated with and speaking on the behalf the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). The thesis employs discourse analysis to analyze the shifts within the statements of AKP politicians on the Syrian refugees depending on the time, the location and the audience. In conclusion, this study argues that the refugee subjectivities are shaped by and constructed around an uncertainty related to contextual changes in the state discourse. The various religious, historical and pragmatic narratives, in which the Syrian refuges are situated in the state discourse, will be discussed as the main aspects of this uncertainty.

iv Keywords: Syrian refugees, migration, state discourse, discourse analysis, uncertainty, Turkey

v ÖZ

DEVLET SÖYLEMINDE MÜLTECI ÖZNELLIKLERININ ÜRETIMI: TÜRKIYE’DEKI SURIYE’LI MÜLTECILER ÖRNEĞI

Öztürk, Aysel Kültürel Çalısmalar Yüksek Lisans Programı Tez Danısmanı: Yrd. Doç. Ebru Kayaalp Ağustos 2017, 69 sayfa

Bu çalısma, Suriyeli mültecilerin öznelliklerinin devlet söyleminde ne sekilde üretildiğini incelemektedir. Suriyeli mültecilerin, 2011 yılı itibariyle baslayan Türkiye’ye doğru kitlesel göçü, Türkiye göç tarihi açısından önemli bir dönüm noktasıdır. Hem Suriyeli mültecilerin kitlesel göçünün Türkiye’nin niceliksel olarak deneyimlediği en büyük göç hareketi olması hem de devletin dini temelli hayırseverlik söylemiyle görünürlük kazanmıs kabul politikası bu göç hareketinin tarihsel olarak ayırt edici özellikleridir. Bununla birlikte, göç politikasında mültecilere yönelik yapısal düzenlemelere dair eksiklikler Türkiye göç tarihi açısından süreklilik arz eden bir hat olarak varlığını sürdürmektedir. Bu bakımdan, her bir göç hareketinin devlet söyleminde ne sekilde konumlandırıldığı ve bu göç hareketlerindeki mülteci öznelliklerinin ne sekilde üretildiği üzerinde durulması gereken bir çalısma alanıdır.

Bu tezin ana hattını, devlet söylemi içerisinde olus(turul)an farklı bağlamlar ve kurgular etrafında, Suriyeli mültecilerin öznelliklerinin üretilme biçimlerini arastırmak olusturuyor. Bu bağlamda, bu tez devlet alanında ve devlet adına konusan ana aktör konumundaki Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi’ne (AKP) bağlı siyasetçilerin söylemlerini merkeze almaktadır. Tez boyunca, AKP’li siyasetçilerin Suriyeli mülteciler hakkındaki söylemlerinde zamana, mekana ve hitap edilen farklı kitlelere bağlı olarak ortaya çıkan değisimlere odaklanılarak, söylem analizine dayalı bir inceleme yapılmaktadır. Sonuç olarak, Suriyeli mültecilerin öznelliklerinin devlet söylemindeki bağlamsal değisimlere bağlı olarak ortaya çıkan bir belirsizlik etrafında biçimlendirildiği ve üretildiği iddia edilmektedir. Suriyeli mültecilerin devlet söyleminde

vi konumlandırıldığı farklı dini, tarihsel ve faydacı anlatılar ise bu belirsizliğin ana unsurları olarak tartısılmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Suriye’li mülteciler, göç, devlet söylemi, söylem analizi, belirsizlik, Türkiye

vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis was written through lots of contributions and I owe a debt of gratitude to many people for the completion of this thesis. First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor Assist. Prof. Ebru Kayaalp. She has made a great contribution at every stage of the thesis. She has not just academically encouraged me but also showed her support whenever I needed. She was more than an advisor for me. Also, I would particularly like to thank Assoc. Prof. Didem Danıs for her crucial critiques and her generous support, without her, this thesis would not have been completed.

I am deeply grateful to Prof. Ferhat Kentel for his open-minding advices. I am glad to have had the opportunity to be his assistant. I would like to express my sincere- gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Murat Öztürk who promoted me always to push my limits in every part of life.

I owe a debt of my gratitude to my friends Demet Yıldız, Bilge Doğansoy, Özgün Gündüz, Öncel Kıcalı who supported me to write this thesis during the most stressful days. I am sincerely grateful to Bahtiyar Mermertas who shared the pains of this thesis and motivated me to continue no matter what happened. I am also thankful to Abdülhamit Akın for sharing the hard times of my graduate life.

I especially would like to thank Melih Kayar with my whole heart. No word can suffice to acknowledge his support in this thesis. I could not overcome the obstacles without his infinite patience and precious love.

Last, but most, I would like to express my hearty gratitude to my family. My father, Rıdvan Öztürk, and my mother, Vildan Öztürk always believed in and supported me. And Sait Öztürk, my brother was always there when I was in difficulty. My academic journey would not continue without their unconditional support and love.

viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... iv Öz ...... vi Acknowledgements ...... viii Table of Contents ...... ix CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 6 2.1. Refugees and Nation-States ...... 6 2.2. Hospitality and Construction of Self and Other ...... 8 2.3. Gift, Giving, and Economy of Exchange ...... 11 2.4. Governmentality, Sovereignty, and Refugees ...... 14 3. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF TURKISH MIGRATION POLICY ...... 20 3.1. Policies toward Asylum in the Early Republican Period ...... 20 3.2. Mass Refugee Flows towards Turkey ...... 25 3.3. Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees ...... 29 3.4. The 1994 Asylum Regulation...... 30 3.5. The Changing Character of Turkish Asylum and Immigration Policy after the 2000s ...... 31 3.6. The Mass Influx of Syrian Refugees to Turkey ...... 33 4. THE SYRIAN REFUGEES IN THE STATE DISCOURSE ...... 37 4.1. Religious Discourse on the Production of Refugee Subjectivity ...... 39 4.2. Historical Discourse on the Production of the Refugee Subjectivity ...... 45 4.3. Pragmatic Discourse on the Production of Refugee Subjectivity ...... 51 4.4. The Discourse of Citizenship as the Game-changer ...... 55 5. CONCLUSION ...... 59 REFERENCES ...... 62

ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

It has been six years since the mass influx of Syrians started in 2011. As a result of violent conflicts between the Syrian government and armed groups, millions of people have been obliged to flee their homes. The mass influx of Syrian people is one of the biggest migration waves and humanitarian crises in the world history. It is estimated that about five million Syrians have fled their country, with some five million registered Syrian refugees currently in the neighbouring countries of Turkey, , Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. Turkey hosts the largest Syrian refugee community with over 3 million people. This mass influx of refugees, especially to Turkey, has raised many issues related to protecting the refugees, securing their rights, providing them social assistance, developing a legislative framework capable of dealing with them, and establishing mechanisms to help them integrate into their new societies.

This thesis examines the production of subjectivities of Syrian refugees in the state discourse. It aims to identify how the state positions itself as the definer of the reality of Syrian refugees and thus how Syrian refugees are being positioned by such mediation. While investigating the state discourse, this thesis intends to reveal the discursive foundation of the uncertainty that determines the position of Syrian refugees in Turkey.

The number of studies on Syrian refugees has increased in direct proportion to the number of refugees. The focuses of studies have varied in respect of the areas that have the notable impact over the condition of Syrians. The greater part of the studies comprises reports concerning the condition of Syrian refugees in Turkey produced by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and scholars. NGO reports generally focus on Syrian refugees’ access to assistance and the legal frameworks that influence their living conditions. Field studies conducted by NGOs at the early stages of the influx such as “Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Istanbul Case/Findings, Needs and Recommendations” (Mazlumder, 2013) and “Situation Report- Syrian Refugees in

1 Turkey” (Support to Life, 2013) are important because they involve first-hand ethnographic data.

The majority of academic studies pertain to the status of Syrian refugees within the context of Turkey’s migration and asylum policy. These studies offer recommendations on the necessary steps for integrating Syrian refugees and for improving the conditions they face. The most prominent of these academic studies are; “Syrian Refugees in Turkey” (Özden, 2013), “Syrian Refugees and Turkey’s Challenges: Going Beyond the Hospitality” (Kirisçi, 2014), “The impact of ’s refugees on southern Turkey” (Çağaptay and Menekse, 2014), “Syrian refugees in Turkey: The Long Road Ahead” (Içduygu, 2015), and “Challenges and Opportunities of Refugee Integration in Turkey” (Simsek and Çorabatır, 2016). These studies discuss the existing legal and economic frameworks that influence the conditions of Syrian refugees.

Because the majority of Syrian refugees live outside of the camps constructed by the state, the issue of the social and economic support mechanisms available to them are another important focus of both NGOs and scholars. Studies that examine the role and influence area of non-governmental actors working to ameliorate the conditions of Syrian refugees include “From the ante-chamber to the living room: A brief assessment on NGOs doing work for Syrian refugees” (Kutlu, 2015) and “Civil society and Syrian refugees in Turkey” (HYD-Turkey, 2017).

Another important focus is the integration of new-comers into the society. Integration is a matter; that is directly connected with how refugees are perceived and represented in society, and there are a number of studies studying these perceptions and representations. The field study “Syrians in Turkey: Social acceptance and integration” (HUGO, 2015) by Hacettepe University Migration and Politics Research Center, for example, identifies existing perceptions within the host society concerning the acceptance of refugees as well as current and possible areas of tension. The representation of Syrian refugees is an issue that has been addressed in the work of scholars in media and communication studies, including “News Media

2 and Refugees: Representation of Syrian Refugees in Turkish Press” (Göker and Savas, 2015) and “A Content Analysis on the representation of Syrian Asylum Seekers in the Turkish Press” (Pandır et.al., 2015). Another aspect of the integration of Syrian refugees as a social group is their experience of trying to maintain their lives and adapt to the places where they have settled. Many studies examine this issue at a local level, including “Bizim müstakbel hep harap oldu. Suriyeli sığınmacıların gündelik hayatı: Antep-Kilis çevresi” (Çağlar et.al., 2016) and “Migration, Strategy and Tactic: Everyday Life Experiences of the Syrian Asylum-Seekers” (Deniz et.al., 2016). The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the literature on of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Benefitting from studies like those mentioned above, this thesis investigates the positioning of Syrian refugees within Turkish state discourse. Within the context of this thesis, I aim to reveal how the state produces the subjectivities of Syrian refugees in different contexts. Besides, I aim to trace the shifting points of the state discourse produced on the Syrian refugees. In doing so, this thesis analyzes the uncertainty about the constitution of the subjectivities of Syrian refugees at the discursive level.

Discourse is a dynamic field in which different subjectivities are produced. Examining the construction of refugeeness at the level of state discourse is crucial because the refugee is not a self-appointed category, but rather it exists in a space that is produced and structured by different actors, especially politicians. Hence, focusing on the discourses produced by state actors is significant owing to their performative capacity regarding the determination of the structures wherein the different subjectivities are produced. Thus, thanks to tracing the dynamism of discourse, we get the possibility to analyze the production of different subjectivities, the making- up refugeeness in other words, contingent on different spaces and times.

As Teun Van Dijk (1997) argues, political discourse analysis can work in two ways: by focusing on the political process, including regulations and agreements, and by focusing on the statements of politicians. This study uses the second method with a focus on the statements of prominent political figures of AKP (Justice and Development Party). It scrutinizes the metaphors that are strategically released into

3 circulation and the changing emphases depending on the context of the discourse. In this way, it investigates the discursive components of the production of Syrian refugee’s subjectivity in the context of Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy.

For the methodological frame of the study, I conducted an archival study by using internet sources. I scanned transcriptions of the group meetings of the AKP in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the public statements of prominent AKP figures concerning Syrian refugees between 2011 and 2017. In this way, I examined the changings of the contents in the statements depending on the different audiences: the citizens of Turkey, the Syrian refugees, and European Union (EU).

In terms of the organization of the thesis, the first chapter surveys the existing literature to develop a theoretical framework. It includes a theoretical discussion to understand the direct and indirect factors that affect the relationship between the refugees and the state. The conceptual framework that I develop, draws upon the works of Derrida, Arendt, Agamben, and Foucault and the concepts of nation-state, hospitality, gift economy, governmentality, and sovereignty.

The second chapter examines the historical background of Turkish migration policy starting from the early republican period. This chapter traces the different rationalities shaping the attitude of the state towards migrants and asylum seekers. In doing so, it highlights how cultural, social, and economic factors serve as the main determinants of Turkey’s migration policy. Besides, it examines how the state response to different mass refugee flows has varied over the course of history. It explores these variations to better understand the construction of frontiers in which the migrants are admitted. Lastly, the chapter details the process of the mass influx of Syrian refugees to Turkey to lay the groundwork for the analysis of state discourse offered in the following chapter.

The main analysis and discussion of this thesis will be given in the third chapter. Based on the theoretical framework and the historical background of Turkish migration policy developed in the previous chapters, this chapter will analyze how refugeeness

4 is constructed in the case of Syrians in Turkey and how state actors position them in different ways depending on changing contexts. In the first section of the chapter, I examine the religious dimension of the state discourse produced over the subjectivities of Syrian refugees. In doing so, I try to reveal how politicians recall the religious narrative of “ensar and muhacir” and how they position Syrian refugees within this narrative. The second section focuses on the historical dimension of the issue by focusing on the narrative of “ecdad”. This section aims to analyze the historical foundation of the responsibility towards Syrian refugees and the historical references that produce the subjectivities of Syrian refugees. The third section examines the pragmatic dimension of the state discourse. It focuses on the positioning of Syrian refugees in the diplomatic relations between Turkey and EU and thus the constitution of the instrumental subjectivities of Syrian refugees. As the last focus of this chapter, I discuss the discourse of the citizenship and try to draw how this discourse gives the meanings to the subjectivities of Syrian refugees without changing the uncertainty that surrounds them.

5

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The aim of this chapter is to conduct a theoretical discussion over concepts as the nation state, hospitality, gift exchange, governmentality and sovereignty that shape the situation of being a refugee. It is important to trace the existing theoretical conceptualization to construct a comprehensive ground to analyze how refugees are constructed within the state discourse.

The first section mainly focused on the Hannah Arendt’s discussion concerning the position of the refugee as an individual who finds himself/herself thrown out of the family of nations. The second section examines the construction of the self and the other over the concept of hospitality. The power relations that shape the dichotomy between the homeowner and the guest will be handled to better understand the discourse of hospitality towards refugees. The focus of the third part will be the discussions over the gift economy. The gift economy will be approached as an important concept to understand the relation between the recipient and the receiver, thus the homeowner and the guest. The forth and the last section will discuss the concept of governmentality as a population management, the structure of the sovereignty mainly based on the approaches of Foucault, Agamben, and Butler.

2.1. Refugees and Nation-States Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973), indicates that different types of migration seem to share commonalities in the long memory of history. However, the unprecedented aspect of migration in the age of nation states is the difficulty to find a new "home." Here, the difficulty is not about the problem of space or overpopulation, but rather it is directly related to the issue of political organization, which shapes the reality of migration with severest restrictions. Arendt argues that: "For so long time considered under the image of a family of nations, had reached the stage where whoever was thrown out of one of these tightly organized closed

6 communities found himself thrown out of the family of nations altogether" (p.293- 294).

Arendt highlights two interconnected dynamics relating to this imagery of the family of nations: the nation-states are increasingly transformed into closed communities that raise their walls to exclude outsiders and the so-called human rights become increasingly questionable. The structure of nation-states grounds on the notion of citizenship which gives "a right to have rights" (Arendt, 1973: 296). Thus, the case of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers becomes complicated owing to the fact that they have already lost their nation-states bestowing rights to them. Refugees, as individuals characterized by the absence of statist identities and communities, generate a crisis in the allegedly eternal and universal concept of human rights because they do not any more belong to a state, which could defend their rights as citizens. The situation of being a refugee thus turns into a sort of deprivation of the political subjectivity that citizenship provides. Therefore, the refugee is uprooted in two different ways: from her territory and from her rights.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a nation-state is its frontiers which are neither neutral nor natural. Even if the frontiers have a current economic, political, and social function, they are the inventions of a collective imaginary. These frontiers become concrete through the practices of states. They draw the limits between the inside and the outside; they regulate the actions of entrance and exit. Moreover, they correspond to the starting point of the place where the laws of inside begin. When considered from this point of view, frontiers are transformed into constitutive elements. They constitute the inner space as a home under the authority of a host. Since the existence of the refugee destabilizes the ongoing authority of space, the refugee becomes a slippery haunting figure that necessitates the rethinking of the concept of “home” (Saybasılı, 2011: 32). The refugee does not simply occupy the space, but rather she/he complicatedly pesters the space. This feature accounts for the so-called refugee crises. All ad hoc regulations, deals, frontier controls, construction of camps are the efforts to restore the authority over space. Giorgio Agamben (1996) also defines the refugee as the “disquieting element in the order of

7 the nation-state” (p. 161). The refugee spoils the relation between the human and the citizen, the birth and the nation. Hence, Agamben argues that the refugee throws the modern sovereignty of nation state into a crisis.

The notion of citizenship enables the tangible form of a “home” and political rights innate to a space as well. Without citizenship, the refugee is not only devoid of political rights that make space a “home”, but also of political subjectivity. Thus, as Peter Nyers (2006) argues, the refugee position involves a deficiency as “the capacity to speak politically and the expectation that they will be heard’ (p. 17). It means that the word stays directionless in case there is not an equality through which the political subjects could come across. Moreover, Nyers (1999) indicates that a discourse of emergency prevails in all refugee phenomena (p. 11). That’s why the case of refugee is mostly seen as the moment of crisis which needs ad hoc solutions. To define or to maintain the case as an “emergency” means that it will always be accepted as a “problem”.

2.2. Hospitality and Construction of Self and Other The notion of hospitality is also a quite problematic issue since it never signifies an equal relation between the host and the guest. Hospitality is a practice that includes a hierarchy which puts the host in a superior position and the guest to an inferior position. Moreover, it turns into a means of dealing with alterity as far as the stay is a one-way offer. Even if it seems like that it involves an action of interest, it is inevitably shaped by the actions of power. While hospitality functions on a power asymmetry, it also seeks to control the (possibility of a) danger that the guest presents (Herzfeld, 1987: 75-89). The danger here is not necessarily a physical danger, but should be thought the destabilization of the ongoing authority of the space through the haunting figure of a refugee, as Saybasılı (2011) argues.

In his conceptualization of the ethics of hospitality, Derrida (2000) indicates that there are two laws of hospitality, namely conditional and unconditional or absolute hospitality (p. 25). Conditional hospitality signifies a legal and juridical definition as “a pact of hospitality” that specifies the rules and duties of the guest. This also

8 prevails in the migration and asylum policies of the present. As for unconditional or absolute hospitality, it signifies a more ethical approach toward the guest. It does not demand any reciprocity or anything else. Here, hospitality becomes an unconditional welcome towards the guest. However, as Kearney (1999) discusses, absolute hospitality is only possible in the condition of "the suspension all criteria of ethical or juridical discrimination" (p. 261). In this way, unconditional hospitality turns into an impossible demand. Nevertheless, for conditional hospitality, Derrida points out that the formulation of hospitality as a legal issue creates a dilemma. This is because the acceptance of the other within the limitations brought by the law is only possible when the homeowner keeps up to be the master of that place through the protection of his authority. Thus, it could be argued that hospitality is something that constructs and produces authority and a relation of sovereignty. Moreover, at the time that the guest enters to the home where the rules of host prevail, the host also enters to the home as the sovereign via the guest. Therefore, it is impossible for these two laws of hospitality to function together. They both need and ruin each other at the same time.

The construction of hospitality as a legal arrangement suspends the admission of guest in an infinite and unconditional way. In that sense, hospitality is not something universal but rather juridical and political. Derrida (1999) argues: [...] it -universal hospitality- grants only the right of temporary sojourn and not the right of residence; it concerns only the citizens of States; and, in spite of its institutional character, it is founded on a natural right, the common possession of the round and finite surface of the earth, across which humans cannot spread ad infinitum (p. 87).

Indeed, the difficulty to find a new “home” as Arendt mentions arises at that point. The thing that makes the home is the citizenship as a natural right that the state bestows in one sense. Moreover, in every encounter of these two laws, a new paradox changing the meaning of “home” occurs. Hence, while the pact of hospitality sticks within such a paradox, the same thing prevails over the rights that are divided as universal and citizen rights. Both concepts need each other but also create a

9 constant collision. The tension between two laws of hospitality occurs as a tangible situation in the state policies on asylum seekers and refugees.

Derrida also highlights the proximity between the terms of "host" and "hostage" as well as the "hospitality" and "hostility." These are the concepts involving each other, and therefore they become in fact two sides of the same coin both bearing the control/management and danger. The law of conditional hospitality draws thresholds by which being a host or a hostage finds its meaning. In the case of refugees, the borders of countries appear as material thresholds that determine the situation of being a host or hostage.

The complex relations between discursive and practical dimension of hospitality reveal a ground where the sovereignty of the host prevails. From this perspective, power relations are immanent to relations of hospitality. There is a correspondence between hospitality and power relations shaped mostly by the sovereignty of the host. The power relations here are constructed on the ground of the power of the national sovereign: [...] choosing, electing, filtering, selecting their invitees, visitors, or guests, those to whom they decide to grant asylum, the right of visiting, or hospitality. No hospitality, in the classic sense, without sovereignty of oneself over one’s home, but since there is also no hospitality without finitude, sovereignty can only be exercised by filtering, choosing, and thus by excluding and doing violence (Derrida, 2000: 55).

The spatial and temporal dimensions of hospitality could only be established by activities aimed at the categorization of the new-comers, as Derrida mentions. While the rules are determined according to space and time, the new-comers are involved or excluded not only regarding their "qualifications" but also their "quantification." Besides, the requirements and the necessary compulsions are imposed with regard to the guest’s place within the power relations. Therefore, this hospitality simultaneously contains two meanings: the exclusive and violent as well as the inclusive and generous (Derrida, 2000: 15). Accordingly, there is not a priori hospitality, but there is a structured one, shaped within power relations. Moreover,

10 it could be argued that all kind of openness and therefore munificence shaping the relations of hospitality is concealed by power relations.

2.3. Gift, Giving, and Economy of Exchange The basis of hospitality is constructed over an invitation that draws the frontiers to protect the authority over space. The invitation occurs depending on two dimensions: the construction of space to invite the guest on the one hand and the acquisition of position to invite the guest on the other (Derrida, 1999: 15). In that case, as Derrida argues, hospitality as a law offers a limited existence to the guest within the space. By this limitation, hostility is transformed into hospitality and the invitation turns into a gift (Akay, 1999: 41).

Marcel Mauss, in The Gift, (1990), discusses the importance of the gift and the gift exchange since archaic societies. Even though Mauss’ work is an anthropologic study, it elaborates a significant comprehension concerning the gift as an integral part of social relations. Mauss indicates that the gift exchange relies on a mutual responsibility. While the gift seems unconditional at first glance, in fact it comprises conditionality that contains the interest and the obligation as soon as the exchange comes into question. That is why the reception of a gift is not something that is self- appointed; rather the “gift is received with a burden attached” (p.41). The gift comes with an obligation because it occurs within the system of total services. This system contains three forms of obligation: the obligation to give, the obligation to receive, and the obligation to reciprocate. Hence, the gift creates a cycle based on the engagement of two sides that enter the relation of interest and burden.

Pierre Bourdieu (1990) questions the idea that the gift creates a cycle of reciprocity, and adds that such a cycle is to “reduce[s] the agents to the status of automata or inert bodies moved by obscure mechanisms towards ends of which they are unaware” (p. 98). With this criticism, Bourdieu calls us to think beyond automatic law of reciprocity. He argues that the relation of reciprocity does not necessarily call forth the obligation since there exist agents who are irreducible to automata. Thus, according to him, the relation emerging with the gift could not be predictable but

11 rather “(in reality) the gift may remain unreciprocated, when one obliges an ungrateful person; it may be rejected as an insult, inasmuch as it asserts or demands the possibility of reciprocity, and therefore of recognition” (p.98). Bourdieu highlights the idea of uncertainty within the gift exchange instead of the automatic law of reciprocity. He emphasizes the “time, with its rhythm, its orientation and its irreversibility, substituting the dialectic of strategies for the mechanics of the model” (p.99). Hence, time is the key concept that offers strategies for both parties.

The obligations and reciprocity, as Marcel Mauss mentions, refer to the line between the recipient and the receiver. Nevertheless, the emphasis of time creates another cut-off point which has a potential for being the very determinant of the gift relation. According to Bourdieu (1990), the time as “the interval between gift and counter-gift is what allows a relation of exchange” (p. 105). The thing that constitutes the interval between the recipient and the receiver is the strategies over the time. Thus, the agent could manipulate the cycle of the gift relation by manipulating the time. As Bourdieu claims, the time is the point which cuts all dimensions: “Everything takes place as if the ritualization of interactions had the paradoxical effect of giving time its full social efficacy, which is never more active than when nothing is going on, except time” (p.106). Therefore, the gift exchange is not a simple reciprocity relation, but rather it is a series of strategies in which the temporality determines the intricate structure of the relation.

The gift does not propound an equal relation by its very nature. Apart from the time, as Bourdieu mentions, the positions of participators within the existing power relations are the determinants of the structure of the gift as well. For instance, the gift that state offers to the refugee is the gift of a temporal protection. Since the relationship between refugee and state is not built on an equalitarian foundation; it becomes the relation between the benevolence of sovereign authority and the gratitude of refugee as a humanitarian subject. Thus, the protection as a gift reproduces the existing form of hierarchy between the guest and the homeowner. In this way, the position of both of them takes form in the manner that spreads throughout the space and the time. Wees (1998) indicates that:

12 one who benefits from another’s generosity in reciprocal exchange is placed under an obligation until he repays, and this may entail a degree of actual subservience to the generous giver. Often, generosity is not meant to be repaid in kind at all, but to be reciprocated with long-term subordination to the benefactor (p. 41).

In the case of the refugees, the logic of exchange bases on the relationship between the state as benevolent and the refugee as grateful. However, this relationship is not necessarily realized around an automatic law of reciprocity. The strategies and the manipulative actions over the time shape the characteristic of the relationship. In this way, hospitality towards the guest as a moral issue materializes and gets more complicated within the gift relations.

As mentioned in the previous section, Derrida argues that hospitality is impossible as the two laws of hospitality permanently ruin each other. According to him, the gift suffers the same fate as well. He mentions that while there is a reference to gift, actually the case is "impossibility of gift" (Derrida, 1992: 12). He criticizes Mauss's conceptualization of the gift as an exchange and makes a similar interpretation to his conceptualization of conditional hospitality. He strikingly calls us to think about the difference between the gift and the exchange: If he –donee- recognizes it as a gift, if the gift appears to him as such, if the present is present to him as present, this simple recognition suffices to annul the gift. Why? Because it gives back, in the place, let us say that the symbolic re-constitute an exchange and annuls the gift in the debt. It does not re- constitute an exchange, which, because it no longer takes place as exchange of things or goods, would be transfigured into a symbolic exchange (Derrida, 1992: p.13).

Derrida criticizes Mauss’ comprehension as “valoriz(ing) the generosity of the giving- being” (Derrida, 1992: 44). From Derrida's perspective, the interpretation of the gift as a pioneer of such a process which is only possible with the expectation of something in return ends merely in a symbolic exchange. However, there is a misrecognition within the symbolic exchange by referring to Bourdieu.

Bourdieu argues: “the functioning of gift exchange presupposes individual and collective misrecognition of the truth of the objective 'mechanism' of the exchange”

13 (Bourdieu, 1990: 106). Bourdieu affirms that the interest within a gift exchange transforms into the symbolic capital as the “denied capital” (p.118). The symbolic capital by itself makes the profit a symbolic one. Thus, it could be argued that the expected response to the gift should not necessarily be concrete or material one. Even, the situation could be based on the goal of the prestige or the charisma which accumulate the symbolic capital. If we return to the Derrida’s conceptualization of the gift, it is very clear that the possibility of giving a gift comprises the impossibility of gift as well. According to him, the factualness of a gift behoves an anonymity that evaporates the difference between the self and the other. Whenever the gift is not given by such an anonymity, it is relocated in an economic dimension as an economy of exchange.

2.4. Governmentality, Sovereignty, and Refugees Even if the refugees correspond a significant number of people who have different experiences, desires, concerns, goals and thus they hold ultimately different subjectivities, they turn into a homogeneous population which is described with numbers in the government reports and the agreements between countries. At discursive level, they are defined as subjects of a humanitarian crisis or the subjects of a refugee crisis. Even though there are vast number of factors that cause the mass migration of people, the only unchanging thing is the discourse of security.

Foucault’s conceptualization of governmentality is important to understand the power relations around the notion of population. There are two important concepts that Foucault uses to describe the relation between population and governmentality: biopower and governmentality. The biopower refers to an “explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations, marking the beginning of an era of biopower (Foucault, 1978: 140). As to the governmentality, it describes a particular way of governing populations not only at the macro levels such as administrative or political but also at the micro levels where subjectivities are constructed.

14 Foucault remarks the important turning points of the power structure and the form of the government. He identifies three main types of power: sovereign, disciplinary and regulatory. Sovereignty constitutively grounds on the decision of death and life. Foucault (1978) defines sovereign power as: “a power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (p. 138). Thus, the sovereignty directly targets the life as a whole which consistently remains open to violence. However, the disciplinary type conveys the power to a more concrete level: the body. For the disciplinary form of power, the most important thing is the implanting of the norms via the control on the body. Foucault notices that the discipline is “a power whose highest function was perhaps no longer to kill, but to invest life through and through” (p.139). While the sovereign type of power bases on the intervention over life which is distinguished from the body, the disciplinary power bases on the corrective act on the body which is distinguished from life to produce docile bodies shaped by desired norms. As for the regulatory type of power, Foucault mentions that the subject of this power is the population itself (2003: 246) and corresponds to “a biopolitics of the population” (1978: 139). He uses the concept of biopower to designate the mechanisms through which disciplinary strategies were replaced by biopolitics whose power stems from the regulation of the life of human and of population in general. According to Foucault, the biopower is “indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes” (p. 140-141).

The population does not have an intrinsic and absolute value; rather it has a relative value (Foucault, 2009:345). Due to this relativity, the population is transformed into a subject which is regulated to be remained at the optimum state. Besides, the corrective action of disciplinary mechanism on bodies replaces with the calculations figuring every possible risk. Thus, the governmentality considers not only the goings- on or the prevalent situations but also the contingencies. Foucault argues that there are indefinite series of events that could occur. Therefore, the case is "the management of these series, because they are open series that can only be controlled by an estimate of probabilities, is pretty much the essential characteristic

15 of mechanism of security” (p.20). Thus, the security mechanism is the very actor of regulatory type of power because they function for predicting the possible social phenomena, calculating their probabilities, and directing them to desired paths.

The disciplinary type of power embraces the body as a unit by aiming to reduce the possibility of any deviance, whereas the regulatory type of power and thus the security mechanism do not intend to cancel out the deviance or the risk totally. On the contrary, it needs the deviance and the risk to enable the continuity of governmentality. Thus, the security mechanism does not ignore the existence of deviance rather it separates the deviance from the total. The purpose behind such a separation lies on the aim of securitization of the whole circulations. In respect to this, the separation of an undesirable circulation has also a function as to depict the frontiers of the desirable one. Hence, the security mechanism creates binary categorizations between them and us; the normal and abnormal or disposable.

The governmental logic erodes many notions which are thought as constant. In this respect, the consideration of population with a security perspective continuingly calls for the transformation. Foucault (2009) remarks: [...] with the population we have something completely different from a collection of subjects of right differentiated by their status... [we have] a set of elements that, on one side, are immersed within the general regime of living beings and that, on another side, offer a surface on which authoritarian, but reflected and calculated transformations can get a hold (p. 75). While the social categories, such as the population consisting of individuals who have rights, are transformed into the subject of security; the law as administrative area is subjected to the transformation as well. By a security perspective, the law changes into a permanent area of the tactics which have specific finalities. The law also does not have an intrinsic value; but rather it means the "disposition of things" in a governmental way. Foucault (2009) elucidates the relation between tactics, law, and sovereignty: So, the objective of government will be a series of specific finalities. And one will arrange (disposer) things to achieve these different ends. This word “disposer” is important because, what enabled sovereignty to achieve its aim of obedience to the laws, was the law itself; law and sovereignty were

16 absolutely united. Here, on the contrary, it is not a matter of imposing a law on men, but of the disposition of things, that is to say, of employing tactics rather than laws, or, of as far as possible employing laws as tactics; arranging things so that this or that end may be achieved through a certain number of means (p. 99).

The transformation of law into tactics is a quite considerable issue since the law corresponds to the space where fundamental rights and freedoms are defined in the modern period. When the law is settled on the slippery ground, the relation between the individual -including refugees and citizens- and the state gets difficult to define. Even for refugees, the absence of a de facto law creates a sort of a juridical “buffer zone” (Kıvılcım, 2015: 44). Giorgio Agamben (2005) defines the relation between security and governmentality - as Foucault insistently emphasized – as such: “the declaration of the state of exception has gradually been replaced by an unprecedented generalization of the paradigm of security as the normal technique of government” (p. 14). According to Agamben, the state of exception corresponds to the space of uncertainty where the frontiers of the inside and the outside are ambiguous.

For refugees, the implementation of legal regulations that change depending on political conjunctures instead of an absolute and permanent law demonstrates the relation between the structure of sovereignty and the state of exception. According to Agamben (1998), the state of exception is where the “bare life” is grounded (p. 6). The bare life accounts for the situation of being a refugee because she could not directly get involved into the circle determined by the birth principle of the nation- state. Bare life draws the frontiers of politics and sovereignty by its exclusion and therefore it is included in politics by its very exclusion. Thus, the exclusive inclusion of the bare life is where the sovereign power is founded (p.107). It is remarkable that refugees are included to the law through the regulations but without being accepted as political subjects. Accordingly, they turn into a population consisting of the human beings who are deprived of the "right to have right” and excluded from the family of nations.

17 Agamben argues that there is a hidden tie between the sovereign power and the governmentality. Contrary to Foucault, Agamben does not interpret the governmentality as a different type or level of power vis-a-vis the sovereignty; in fact it includes the sovereign power in itself. By Agamben’s comprehension, the state of exception is not a limited state of governmental strategy; but rather it is the permanent paradigm of governmentality. Besides, he argues that the biopolitics is not a historically specific technology of power; but rather it the fundamental technology of ongoing sovereignty. The action of separation in the security mechanism continues as the state of inclusion and exclusion in Agamben’s terminology. Thus, the biopolitics targeting life and population becomes the very nature of the state of exception. In this manner, the frontiers between inside and outside, thus those of the state of inclusion and exclusion is determined. The bare life prevails by converting some parts of population into disposable and settling the law to a slippery ground.

As discussed above, while Foucault separates the sovereignty and the governmentality as two types of power, Agamben argues that sovereignty proceeds in an uninterrupted way with the biopolitics. However, Judith Butler calls us to think in more radical way. Butler (2004) argues that the actual case is neither the absolute sovereignty nor the governmentality but the resurgence of sovereignty within the field of governmentality. She mentions: "… precisely because our historical situation is marked by governmentality, and this implies, to some extent, a loss of sovereignty, that loss is compensated through the resurgence of sovereignty within the field of governmentality" (p. 56). According to her, the management of the population as an entirely specific feature of the governmentality and the suspension of the general law for some parts of the population reveals another circumstance for the current state power. This new circumstance bases on “the act of suspending the law as a performative one which brings a contemporary configuration of sovereignty into being or, more precisely, reanimates a spectral sovereignty within the field of governmentality” (p.61). Thus, it could be argued by taking a cue from Butler that the performativity of political discourse towards refugees enables us to see how the refuge-ness is constructed within the power relations.

18 “The employing law as tactics” with a Foucauldian perspective; “the state of exception” with Agambenian terminology; and also “the act of suspending the law as a performative one” by referring to Butler are all important intellectual conceptualizations which could serve as tool boxes to better understand the position of refugees within the complex structure of power relations: state and law. Biner (2014) mentions that when the asylum and migration policy in Turkey is considered, the prominent feature is the uncertainty which means the changing of technics depending on the different cases and the redeveloping of strategies over and over again (p. 386). It signifies how the uncertainty becomes a governing tool of the state towards the migrant populations in Turkey.

19

CHAPTER 3 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF TURKISH MIGRATION POLICY

The examination of migration policies of states primarily tells us the transformation in terms of the movement of migration. Yet maybe most importantly, these policies reveal the dynamic relation between the structure of the state and the logic of governmentality. In this respect, the historical background of migration policies is an important source, as it provides the possibility to track not only the important changes but also the continuities. Both the changes and continuities are vital as they point to critical areas concerning how frontiers are drawn politically.

This chapter will be firstly concerned with the historical foundation of Turkish state refugee and asylum policy. The significant legislative regulations in the matter of mass refugee flows will be examined starting from the early republican period. It is important to scrutinize the historicity spreading over time in order to better interpret the structures that shape the present. As Erder (2014) states, while policies of early republican period built foreign migration policy in long term, they also constructed the ideology of nation-state that determines who is citizen and who is foreigner. Besides, they constitute rules and perspective, which spread over from the past to the present, on refugees and asylum seekers (p. 9). The second focus of this chapter will be the prominent mass refugee flows and the responses of the Turkish state toward them. The examination of the responses of the Turkish state is highly important for grasping the specifies that shape the country’s migration policy.

3.1. Policies toward Asylum in the Early Republican Period The main characteristics of migration policies in the early republican period were closely related to the nation-building process of Turkey. Accordingly, the engineering of the population was the main line of the governance of migration in that period. In this period, the government considered both the inner and outer population movements as an important part of the nation-building process and national integrity after the collapse of the (Içduygu and Aksel, 2013: 168). The

20 fundamental policies toward migration took shape around the aim of homogenizing the population of the country. This homogenization process had two parts: the arrival of Turkish Muslim populations particularly from the and the departure of non-Muslim populations from .

The transformation of population structure through migration was not unique to the early republican period, but the mass refugee flows from Balkans, which Ilhan Tekeli (2007) calls “balkanized migrations”, began especially with the dissolution of Ottoman Empire and continued throughout the early period of the Turkish Republic. The attitudes of the republican government adopted towards these refugee flows changed overtime by underlining the religion dimension Even though the primary line that shaped policies was the notion of nation, it was a nation through religion (Çağaptay, 2002) because religion had a great impact on population structure in the Ottoman period and later.

During the early period, the Turkish Republic entered into bilateral agreements, especially with Balkan states, for the purpose of Turkifying the population to facilitate migration waves. The salient side of these agreements was the emphasis on Islam rather than Turkishness (Çağaptay, 2002: 223). That is to say, the population that came into question in these agreements initially defined as Muslim populations. This situation shows how the Islamic discourse inherited from Ottoman Empire was still influential in the early republican period. It could be considered as the logical continuation of the millet system, which had a central role in categorizing people religiously during the Ottoman period. As Çağaptay (2006) argues, religion constituted the main differentiation point, and the ethnic differences consolidated under religion without did not come into the forefront (p. 5).

The republic put religion at the center of its migration policies in its early years. The Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was one of the biggest population movement within this context. This Convention envisaged a population exchange between Turkey and with the aim of homogenization of population in terms of religion. Ethnic and cultural differences were not taken into

21 consideration by putting religious identity at the centre (Goularas, 2012: 130). Between 1923 and 1945, 837,000 people were allowed to enter to Turkey from Greece, , , and (Kirisçi, 1999: 112). The extent of population exchange becomes clearer when it is considered that 456,720 came from Greece to Turkey as mübadil between 1923 and 1927 (Goularas, 2012: 131).

In 1926, Law no 885 on Settlement was adopted in order to regulate cross-border population movement. This law was the first official text governing voluntary immigration (Içduygu and Sert, 2015: 91). It was significant for establishing a discursive ground based on Turkishness that was followed by legal arrangements, as well as for containing regulatory initiatives related to inner and outer population movements. The first article of the law formally indicates that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is entrusted with the task of allowing immigrants and refugees into the country. The second article of law defines potential immigrants or refugees in terms of their undesirable features. In the law, individuals who could not enter Turkey were defined as: People who do not belong to Turkish culture, who are infected with syphilis, who are subject to leprosy and their families, who are imprisoned because of committing murder except political and military reasons, anarchists, spies, gypsies, and who are exiled outside of the country cannot be admitted (Iskan Kanunu, no: 885, 1926). Even though the article did not elaborate on what it meant to “belong to Turkish culture”, this law is important because it was the first to that emphasized the Turkishness. The emphasis on “culture” refers to the inclusive common past of the Ottoman Empire and Muslim population in the Balkans. This is culture in a broad sense, including language, religion, and values.

The Law no 885 on Settlement was the legal basis of the cross-border refugee movements from Balkan countries was constituted (Çağaptay, 2002: 225). This law aimed at the engineering of the movement of population in general. On the one hand, it regulated the settlement of refugees coming from Balkan countries to the evacuated lands of the non-Muslim population; on the other hand, it aimed to

22 ethnically mix the inner population by especially focusing on Kurdish population (Içduygu et.al., 2014: 119). Hence, the Law on Settlement no 885 was a rudimental starting point of the homogenization approach of the state.

The Law no 885 on Settlement was the basis for the subsequent legislative regulations. 1934 Law on Settlement no 2510 was one of the most debated laws in migration literature. Since this law designed a quite strict and direct definition of eligibility for immigration, it differed from the previous law. The second article of the law defined the people who could enter the country as: “individuals of Turkish race or individuals connected to Turkish culture who speak Turkish and who do not know any other language.” The usage of “Turkish race” in addition to the “Turkish culture” mentioned in the 1926 Settlement law is quite remarkable. As Erder indicates, such an emphasis on Turkish race could be considered as the expression of an objective that aspired to unite the nation building process with a different origin aside from the Ottoman period (Içduygu et.al., 2014: 122). At the period when Turkish nationalism was ideologically constructed under the single-party system, the emphasis changed to Turkish ethnicity rather than Islam. In this respect, the 1934 Law on Settlement could be considered as one of the most prominent documents of the nation-building process (Içduygu and Aksel, 2013: 167).

The shift in emphasis did not abrogate the previous one, yet it created different layers in defining Turkishness. Çağaptay (2002) argues that the expression of “Turkish culture” was actually referring to Islam, since the 1934 Law on Settlement deprived non-Muslim population from one of the essential parts of Turkishness: the belonging to Islam. Thus, it created a migration policy based on the concept of nation through religion, and constituted an ethnic frontier between non-Muslims and Turks (Çağaptay, 2002). It is necessary to add that the 1934 Law on Settlement was not as harsh in practice as it was on paper. Caucasian, Balkan, and Asian Turkish speaking communities were incorporated into the law at the outset. Moreover, , Bosnians, , and , who were religiously Muslim but not ethnically Turkish, also benefited from the conditions of the law in some circumstances (Kirisçi, 1999: 112). Thus, even though they were not ethnically Turkish, they were considered

23 as communities that could be integrated into Turkish identity (Içduygu and Sert, 2015: 85). In contrast, Gagauzians, who were ethnically Turkish but religiously Orthodox Christian, were left out of the scope of the migration agreement signed between Romania and Turkey in 1936 (Çağaptay, 2002: 224). This example makes it difficult to interpret either Islam or Turkishness as sufficient requirements to be admitted to Turkey. As Danıs and Parla (2009) have argued, the most crucial point is to understand how both discourses went together in general and constructed an intricate structure, despite that they sometimes entered into a rivalry with each other (p. 133). This intricate structure ascends on a “migration hierarchy” where the different layers of so-called Turkish culture were used in a functional way. As Çağaptay (2002) has pointed out, Kurds were considered at the lower level of migration hierarchy, even though they were Muslim, together with non-Muslim Armenians and Jews (p. 237). Besides, the attitude adopted towards Iraqi Kurds at the time of migration wave in 1991, which will be discussed in detail later, shows how such an immigration hierarchy has continued throughout the history of the republic of Turkey.

The 1934 Law on Settlement was designed with a larger perspective than the 1926 Settlement Law had been. On the one hand, it aimed to regulate cross-borders population movements. On the other, it undertook an important function for the homogenization of national identity (Kirisçi, 2000: 4). At the same time, this law served to categorize migrants into two groups: “settled migrants” and “independent migrants”. The state granted migrants economic assistance and land to settle on. Independent migrants received no assistance. However, the independent migrants had the right to settle wherever they desired as long as they had a migration visa and were economically self-sufficient. Aside from these two categorizes, this law made a distinction between migrant and refugee status. Refugees were defined in article 3 as “persons who take shelter in Turkey in order to reside temporally on account of compelling reasons without the intention to settle permanently shall be called refugees.” By placing such emphasis on “temporality” and “without the intention to settle, this article defined both the eligible conditions for being a refugee and also specified the differences between refugee and migrant” (Yılmaz, 2007: 254).

24 Nevertheless, the law also mentioned that the naturalization was possible if refugee declared his/her intent to settle in the country by proving his/her attachment to Turkish culture (p.255).

The 1934 Law on Settlement was one the most important documents of the nation- building process and remained in force until 2006. Even though a few amendments were made in the process of time, its fundamental structure was remained unchanged. In 2006, the 1934 law of settlement was repealed and replaced by the new Law no. 5543 on Settlement. The fundamental change in the new law was the subcategorization of independent migrant as individual migrant and migrant in the group (Yılmaz, 2007: 251). Nevertheless, it is quite remarkable that the people that cannot be admitted as migrant in article 4 are defined as: “foreigners who are not connected to Turkish race and culture, deportees connected to Turkish race and culture, and people whose admittance is not valid for security reasons”. Thus, the precondition of Turkishness to be accepted as a migrant remains. In this sense, it could be argued that the traces of nationalist rationale remain even if the governments change.

3.2. Mass Refugee Flows towards Turkey The mass refugee flows towards Turkey fall into three major periods: 1923-1945, 1945-1980, and after 1980. The period between 1923 and 1945 was mostly shaped by the 1926 and 1934 Laws on Settlement. Turkey witnessed a mass migration wave especially from Balkan countries in this period. The approximate number of people who migrated to Turkey between 1923 and 1945 was 837,000 (Kirisçi, 1999: 112). As mentioned before, the most prominent migration wave during this period occurred as the consequence of the Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. Additionally, 200,000 people from Bulgaria, 121,296 people from Romania, and 155,427 people from Yugoslavia were accepted as migrants during the 1920s and 1930s (p.112). The other result of this process was a striking decline in the non-Muslim population. While the proportion of non-Muslim population was about 19% in 1914, it fell to 3% in 1927 and later decreased to 1% (Içduygu and Aksel, 2013: 172). Migrants from Balkan countries were considered as the desired population

25 since the construction of Turkish Republic. They were accepted as soydaş by referring to common ethnicity and religiosity and placed at the upper parts of the hierarchy of acceptance (Danıs and Parla, 2009) for quite a while. Thus, the character of the period between 1923 and 1945 was considerably shaped by population movements from Balkan countries.

The cross-border population movement from Balkan countries decreased but continued in later years. The most prominent population movements within the period between 1945 and 1980 were the migration wave from Bulgaria in 1950-1951 during which 154,000 people migrated to Turkey. Turks who were mostly farmers fled from Bulgaria as a result of the policy of forced land collectivization. Besides, the policies aimed at unification of the education system and the restriction of religious practices were among the reasons that pushed the people towards Turkey (Içduygu and Sert, 2015: 96). The arrivals were considered within the scope of the Settlement Law of 1934 and the immigrants were settled mostly in Western and Central Anatolia and .

The patterns of migration to Turkey radically changed after the 1980s. Migration from Balkan countries fell off in the 1990s, and a new form of migration took place since the 1980s. Thousands of transit migrants from the , Asia, and Africa started to enter to Turkey (Içduygu, 2000: 360). The insecure environment in Eastern countries and the globalization of the world made Turkey a passageway for people who were in search of a secure life. By the 1980s, a new form of migration emerged: there were also foreigners who were neither Turkish nor Muslim (Içduygu and Aksel, 2013: 123). Until the 1980s, the governments had never dwelled on refugee flow outside of Europe (Icduygu and Keyman, 2000: 385).

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, thousands of Iranians came to Turkey. However, they were only allowed to stay legally in Turkey as tourists, owing to the geographic limitation that Turkey put into the Geneva Convention, which was signed in 1951 to constitute an international framework for the protection of refugees. While only a few of them got residence permits in Turkey (Kirisçi, 2000: 11), most of them used

26 Turkey as a transition area en route to Western countries (Içduygu, 2000: 360). Therefore, this influx of Iranians did not lead a structural crisis in Turkish migration policies even though it was the first massive flow from a non-European country. In 1989, another mass influx from Bulgaria to Turkey arose from the assimilationist politics of Bulgaria towards Turks. As a result, almost 400,000 migrated to Turkey. They entered Turkey legally, as in the case of Iranian migrants. However, there was a considerable difference between attitudes adopted by the state towards these two migration waves. The naturalization process was rapidly realized for Bulgarian Turks, whereas only a few Iranian were able to obtain residence permits. However, as Danıs and Parla (2009) argue, the mass influx of Bulgarian migrants could be considered as the last example of hospitable policies based on kinship solidarity in the admittance of migrants and refugees (p. 136). After the 1990s, the arrivals from Bulgaria had remarkable difficulties getting residence permits and citizenship compared to the 1950-51 and 1989 migrants. Even though the kinship discourse and emphasis on ethnic and religious identity remained in the forefront for a long time, the political and economic conjunctures were also other important determinants that influenced the admittance procedure.

From the late 1980s, Turkey witnessed other movements of migration, which became a challenge in terms of pre-existing policies and dominant discourse over the admittance of migrants and refugees. Despite all the national resistance points, Turkey was transformed into a transition country with the increasing number of asylum-seekers who gravitated to Turkey from neighboring countries such as Iraq and remote regions such as Africa, Middle East, and Asia.

The two important influxes of refugees from Iraq to Turkey in 1988 and 1991 constituted a milestone in this period. The first influx occurred in 1988 as a consequence of the chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja by the Iraq government. 51,000 people, mostly Kurds, flew to Turkey. In spite of the Turkish government’s initial reluctance, they were accepted in consequence of the pressure of the international community (Danıs et.al., 2009: 494). Asylum seekers were preliminarily placed in three separate camps but then the majority returned to Iraq

27 in 1991, while some of them went to Iran and other third countries (Kirisçi, 2000: 12). Iraqi asylum seekers were considered as temporary guests and had no legally defined status within the period. The second considerable influx of refugees from Iraq took place in 1991 after the Gulf War. There were still security concerns owing to the example of 1988; therefore, the first thing that the Turkish government did was to close its borders until the United Nations Security Council responded (Kirisçi, 1996: 19). After the United Nations Security Council meeting, it was decided to establish a no-fly zone and construct transit camps along the Turkey and Iraq border. About 460,000 refugees were placed in these camps. The Turkish government behaved timidly towards these two influxes of refugees for two main reasons: first, there was an extreme unease concerning Kurdish identity owing to the rise of the PKK’s activities, and second, there was a concern in regard to the usage of the term refugee because it could mean easing up the geographic limitation that Turkey put into the 1951 Geneva Convention (Kirisçi, 2000: 12), according to which Turkey would give refugee status only to people coming from European countries. Hence, the dominant discourse of internal politics could also be considered as an important factor that determines the position of arrivals within the hierarchy of acceptance.

Historically speaking, there was a considerable difference between the attitude towards the migration from Bulgaria and Iraq. While Bulgarian Turks were encouraged to come to Turkey and a number of regulations were made to facilitate their integration to Turkey, Iraqis were mostly discouraged from coming to Turkey even while there were serious humanitarian concerns. In 1989, the Turkish government quickly opened the border to those fleeing from Bulgaria. However, when it came to Iraqis, the reluctance dominated the process, and the border was immediately closed. These cross-border population movements, which were temporally closed, signify two important lines of Turkish migration policy. The emphasis on kinship comes to the forefront with the arrivals from Bulgaria, but the orientation of emphasis shifts into security discourse with the arrivals from Iraq (Danıs and Parla, 2009: 139). Consequently, these cases of mass migration show not only a shift towards securitization of migration but also a general view of Turkish migration policy that is mostly shaped by temporary and ad hoc solutions.

28 3.3. Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees In 1951, the Geneva Convention was prepared by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as an international framework for the protection of refugees. The Convention was envisioned to find a solution concerning the refugee crises after the Second World War. In this context, the definition of refugee and the responsibilities of states were systematized. Until the adoption of the Geneva Convention, refugee status was being given only to individuals belonging to “Turkish descent and culture”, and Turkey did not have any legislation governing foreigners’ asylum applications.

Initially, the 1934 Law on Settlement mentioned refugees but it did not include an extensive regulation about refugees. Turkey signed the Geneva Convention with a geographic and temporal limitation in 1951. In 1967, a new regulation was concluded to consider the refugee crisis in the other parts of the world and thus the geographic and temporal limitations were removed. Together with this regulation, a refugee was defined as an individual who: [...]is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion (UNHCR, 1951). However, Turkey continued to retain the geographic limitation only by abrogating the temporal limitation. It means that Turkey approved accepting the asylum applications of people coming from Europe. Even though the Convention brought a legal framework about asylum seeker and refugee status, the implementation of the Convention, as it is, did not ensure an enlargement over the provisions of the Law no. 2510 of Settlement (Kirisçi, 2000: 11).

The limitation that Turkey applied created confusion in terms of the Convention’s universal implementation. As Kemal Kirisçi (1996) has argued, two main type of refugee status arose as a result of Turkey’s two-tiered asylum policy. The first type is the conventional refugee: individuals coming from European countries and seeking asylum. The second category was the non-conventional refugee: individuals coming from non-European countries. The main argument of Turkey concerning the geographic limitation was the problem of fund-raising. According to this argument, it

29 is asserted that if the geographic limitation is cancelled, the number of people obtaining refugee status will increase dramatically, and Turkey will face a huge financial problem in terms of services such as education, health, and security (Kaya, 2015: 20). Turkey still protects the provision of the geographical limitation and has been criticized on this ground especially after the refugee influx from Syria.

The individuals coming from European countries were considered as conventional refugee within the context of Geneva Convention. The individuals who could obtain refugee status benefited from the rights defined in the Geneva Convention during their residence in Turkey. However, the resettlement of these refugees into third countries was expected from UNHRC. Even though 13,552 people benefited under the Convention in Turkey between 1970 and 1996, only a limited number of them could obtain permission to stay in Turkey (Kirisçi, 1999: 117). Turkey considered individuals from outside of European countries with the temporary protection and gave UNHRC the responsibility to resettle them in a third country. Thus, Turkey operated only a temporary asylum procedure towards those who came from outside of Europe. In this case, individuals were obliged to follow a two-staged process. The first step that a non-conventional refugee had to follow was to apply to the Turkish government in order to take asylum-seeker status and then to apply to the Turkey office of the UNHCR to get refugee status. However, it should be noted that it is not possible to apply UNHRC if an individual cannot pass the first step (Kirisçi, 2000: 20). When Turkey’s insistence on the geographic limitation despite the changing character of migration towards Turkey in and after the 1980s is taken into consideration, the need for new regulations is explicitly revealed. The Asylum Regulation in 1994 was prepared as the result of such a necessity.

3.4. The 1994 Asylum Regulation Turkish migration policy had not included any national legal provision for asylum- seekers from outside of Europe until the Asylum Regulation prepared in 1994. The preparation of such a regulation indicates both the necessities of the period and the change concerning the approach of the Turkish state. Within the scope of this regulation, it was predicted that an asylum-seeker coming from outside of Europe

30 could stay in Turkey for a reasonable time until being sent to a third country. Besides, the temporal protection was provided during asylum-seekers’ stay in Turkey.

The 1994 Asylum Regulation could be read as an effort to fill the gap with a securitization perspective. By this regulation, the process of status determination was brought totally under the control of Turkish authorities, and a strict procedure pertaining to asylum application was introduced (Biehl, 2008: 4). Before, the only responsible to determine the status for asylum-seekers coming from non-European countries was UNHRC. According to this procedure, all non-European refugees who came to Turkey and applied to UNHRC with the aim to resettle in a third country were also obliged to file a “temporary asylum” claim towards the Turkish government. With this regulation, the state also became an actor alongside the UNHRC’s executive responsibility. Thus, the procedure became more complicated and extra steps were required for an asylum-seeker.

The enforcement of two different asylum procedures caused the institutionalization of a multipartite structure (Biner, 2016: 92-93). Even though the 1994 Asylum Regulation was the first national legislation for the actors who applied for legal procedure and temporary protection, it did not contain adequate facilitating mechanisms for asylum seekers and refugees. Hence, the main change that the 1994 Asylum Regulation brought was to make Turkey the primary authority in general view.

3.5. The Changing Character of Turkish Asylum and Immigration Policy after the 2000s The asylum and immigration policy of Turkey as a “migration transition country” (Içduygu and Aksel, 2015: 125) for asylum seekers aiming to reach European countries underwent a shift especially after the 2000s. On the one hand, the changing structure of migration flows which could be categorized as “irregular labour migrants, transit migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and regular migrants” (p.126) was one of the important factors that triggered such shift. On the other hand, Turkey’s aim to

31 join the EU and thus the EU harmonization process were other important factors that affected the asylum and immigration policy of Turkey.

For Turkey, the process of EU full membership brought numerous responsibility and necessitated extensive changes on asylum and immigration policy. In 2001, an Accession Partnership Document was signed between Turkey and the EU. This document introduced reforms involving the immigration policy that Turkey had to follow for EU membership. According to these reforms, Turkey was expected to “adopt the EU’s restrictive immigration tactics, to crack down on the illegal migrants passing through its long and porous borders on their way to Europe… and meet the demands of the European community by adhering to international humanitarian standards with regards to refugee protection” (Biehl, 2008: 5). Hence, the Turkish immigration policy has become dependent on the EU with the process starting with this document.

As a result of the involvement of EU as an important actor, Turkey adopted a National Action Plan for Asylum and Migration in 2005. This document was prepared to respond to the EU’s demands. The Turkish government confirmed that it would adhere to the EU’s legal acquis and standards concerning immigration and asylum policy. However, the demand of the EU from Turkey to lift the “geographic limitation” remained a critical issue.

As mentioned before, a new settlement law, the Law no. 5543 on Settlement, was put into force in 2006. However, the nationalist rationale continued to exist by limiting formal immigration under the criteria of belonging to “Turkish descent and culture”. The period starting with the 2000s was shaped by the tension between the nationalist rationale and international migration dilemma (Içduygu and Aksel, 2013: 178). The early years of the 2000s seemed like a liberalization period which was primarily triggered by the EU harmonization process. Nevertheless, the traces of nationalist reason and the concerns to become a “buffer zone” for immigrants and asylum seekers showed that there still exist resistance points to protect state sovereignty.

32 3.6. The Mass Influx of Syrian Refugees to Turkey The influx of Syrians to Turkey started in April 2011 with the use of excessive force by the Syrian government against the anti-government protests. The number of the first group was only 252 (Dinçer et.al., 2013: 14) but the number increased to 15,000 by July 2011 (Icduygu, 2015: 6). At the beginning of the migration of Syrians in 2011, the Turkish government applied an open-door policy towards them and Syrians were described as “guests”. The meaning of the open-door policy was the application of the non-refoulment principle and the procurement of basic needs. The Turkish government employed the discourse of hospitality based on religious fellowship from the beginning of the Syrian’s influx. Thus, they were described as “unconditional” religious fellows as well as guests who are in a dismal situation due to the war in their .

In the early period of the influx, Syrians were settled in temporary camps without the requirement of holding legal documents, such as passport (Dinçer et.al., 2013: 11). The Turkish government handled the refugee situation by constructing camps. Nevertheless, the lack of a foreseeable solution to the in the near term and day by day increasing number of refugees made it clear that the situation was not surmountable merely with camps and without long-term planning.

By mid-2012, the number of fleeing Syrians dramatically increased with the failure of ceasefire efforts. This situation increased the concerns of security and thus the management of flow. As a result, Turkish authorities chose the way of providing humanitarian assistance near the border and introduced the policy of “passage with careful control” to limit the number of newcomers (Icduygu, 2015: 7). However, the flows of migrants, which were expected to end soon, increased. As a consequence, a large number of refugee diffused, especially to cities such as Istanbul, Sanlıurfa, Gaziantep, and Hatay (HUGO, 2015: 14).

According to the data of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued in 2016, the number of Syrians who have fled from Syria since 2011 is about 5 million (UNHCR, Syria Emergency, Updated 30 May 2017a). Approximately

33 2.9 million people left Syria and migrated to Turkey (UNHRC, Syria Regional Refugee Response, Updated 01 June 2017b). The latest numbers that the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) offered that currently about 250,000 Syrian are staying in the camps in Hatay, Gaziantep, Sanlıurfa, Kilis, Mardin, Kahramanmaras, Osmaniye, Adıyaman, , and Malatya (AFAD, Current Status in AFAD Temporary Protection Centres, Updated 05 September 2016). However, it is estimated that the actual number of refugees who spread to different cities of Turkey is far above of this figure especially when it is considered that there are numerous unregistered people in Turkey.

The influx of Syrian refugees was a contingency for Turkey despite the country’s familiarity with transit migration flows since the 1980s. The number of Syrians coming to Turkey did not decrease as expected, but conversely, it gradually increased. However, as mentioned before, due to the geographic limitation that the Turkish state put on the Geneva Convention, the refugee status and the right to asylum are given only to persons who have come to Turkey as a result of events related to Europe. In the following years, two significant regulations are issued concerning to situation of refugees and asylum seekers in Turkey. The first one is the “Law on Foreigners and International Protection” (LFIP) which came into force in April 2013, and the other one is “Temporary Protection Regulation” (TPR) issued in October 2014.

The aim of LFIP is to determine the principles, procedures, and protection regimes to be applied relating to the entrance and stay of foreigners in Turkey. Besides, the Directorate General of Migration Management linked to Ministry of Interior was established within the scope of this law. LFIP determines four different forms of protection under the titles of refugee, conditional refugee, subsidiary protection, and temporary protection. The refugee status mentioned in LFIP refers to the definition of the term as it is used in 1994 Regulation. However, the geographic limitation is still a precondition for the refugee status (LFIP, Article 61). Within the scope of this law, the Turkish government considered Syrian refugees under the title of temporary protection.

34 The Temporary Protection Regulation (TPR) was arranged especially for Syrian refugees. The aim of the regulation is: to determine the procedures and principles pertaining to temporary protection proceedings that may be provided to foreigners, who were forced to leave their countries and are unable to return to the countries they left, and arrived at or crossed our borders in masses to seek urgent and temporary protection and whose international protection requests cannot be taken under individual assessment (TPR, Article 1).

In the regulation, it is explicitly stated that the temporary protection does not refer to a refugee or asylum seeker status (TPR, Article 7(3)). Besides, it indicates that the temporary protection identification document provides the right to stay in Turkey but it is not equivalent to the residence permit, and thus it does not ensure the right to apply for the Turkish citizenship (TPR, Article 25). This regulation grounds on the temporality by which the return of people is expected. Accordingly, it is an “exceptional” procedure rather than a permanent one.

Despite these regulations, it is still not possible to make an exact definition of the status of Syrians in Turkey. Many scholars indicate that the situation of Syrians in Turkey corresponds to an uncertain condition as their rights are not clear. Besides, the attitude of the Turkish government is criticized for holding a charitable approach to the Syrian refugees (Özden, 2013; Çağaptay and Menekse, 2014). Moreover, the historical nationalist rationale remains unchanged because of the insistence over the geographic limitation on Geneva Convention despite the new regulations. Still, only individuals from European countries are considered eligible for refugee status, whereas non-Europeans are considered under the temporary protection status until resettled in a third country. When the context is taken into account, Syrians in Turkey are still far away from “having a right to have rights”.

Another important aspect of the influx of Syrians is the international dimension of the case. The countries with the largest number of immigrant populations after Turkey are Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt (UNHCR, Syria Regional Refugee Response, updated 01 June 2017b). European countries are also one of the important destinations that Syrians turn towards. According to UNHRC data, almost one million

35 Syrians applied for asylum in European countries between 2011 and 2017 (UNHRC, Europe: Syrian Asylum Applications, 2017c). This show us that the case of Syrian refugees has become an international migration crisis. The discourse of “sharing the responsibility of migration crisis” has come into the forefront as many countries fell directly or indirectly under the influence of the case.

The influx of Syrians has become one of the most crucial top issues for the domestic and foreign policy of Turkey, since Turkey hosts the most Syrians in the world (Özden, 2013: 1). As a part of the Turkey’s EU membership process, an agreement was signed between the EU and Turkey on 18 March 2016. According to this agreement, Turkey accepted to admit readmission irregular migrants in return of the liberalization of visa restrictions for Turkish citizen and the investment of €3 billion to enhance the conditions refugees in Turkey. Such an agreement shows that refugees are being used as useful tools within the domestic as well as the foreign politics (Danıs, 2016: 7).

Since the Turkish Republic was founded, its migration policy has always centered around the 1926 and 1934 settlement laws. However, mass refugee flows aroused interest only when they happened. Thus, the main response of policy makers towards these flows was generally based on the ad hoc decisions. Therefore, security-centred approaches have been strengthened rather than the approaches providing structural solutions. This tendency still continues with different projections at the present time.

36

CHAPTER 4 THE SYRIAN REFUGEES IN THE STATE DISCOURSE

Within the context of this chapter, the discourse of AKP (Justice and Development Party) as the ruling party since 2002 towards Syrian refugees will be analyzed to understand how the ideas and policies of refugeeness are constructed. Analyzing the state discourse is quite important for this study because of the fact that it reveals the main discursive line in the face of the admittance of new-comers on the one hand, and shows the shifting points in respect of power relations on the other hand. While examining the state discourse, it should be kept in the mind that focusing on the official statement leads to a limitation. Such a restriction stems from the difficulty to reveal the hidden motivations of politicians while focusing on the observable discourse. Nonetheless, the discourses produced by state actors show significant cornerstones of the overall structure. Even though latent parts always remain, it is important to grasp them as the parts which not only participate in the dominant discourse but also shape it.

Focusing on the state discourse enables two important dimensions: it identifies the presence of the structure into which new comers are admitted, and it exposes the repertoires molded in time while admitting those people. Besides, the state discourse reproduces not only the existing social reality but also shapes the present and subsequent policy framework. In this regard, the processes in which the state discourse is constructed should be approached as contexts that could create its resonances as long as they operate together with the institutional structures.

While examining the state discourse, strategically-used metaphors, leitmotifs as accentuated points, narratives depending on political contexts become critical components that construct the discourse. In this way, the fundamental aim of this chapter is to propound the produced state discourse concerning the Syrian refugees, which is produced and put into circulation by politic actors. For this purpose, this chapter will dwell on the state discourse as a dynamic field which produces refugee

37 subjectivities while positioning itself as the definer of a “reality”. Kristen Sarah Biehl (2015) calls the process that determines the reality of asylum seekers in Turkey as “governing through uncertainty.” She argues that the bureaucratic process that asylum seekers should get involved is a governmental model that seeks to discipline refugees and place them within uncertainty. By benefiting from the conceptualization of Biehl, I aim to trace shifting points within the state discourse as the determinants of the uncertainty in which Syrian refugees find themselves. I will try to analyze the production of refugee subjectivity depending on the production of different narratives within the state discourse.

I will realize this analysis by mainly focusing on the discourses of the prominent figures of AKP, notably Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu, and Binali Yıldırım. Even though the state discourse could not be limited to a few people, the performative power of these people must be considered as a determinant element of the state discourse. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the prime minister of the government when the influx of Syrians began in 2011 and became the president of the republic in 2014. Ahmet Davutoğlu was in charge as the minister of foreign affairs from 2009 to 2014 and served as the prime minister between 2014 and 2016. Also Ahmet Davutoglu’s book, Strategic Depth, had been maintained as the guidebook for AKP’s foreign policy for several years. Binali Yıldırım is the prime minister of the government ever since May 2016.

I determine three main dimensions that have clear influence over the discourse towards Syrian refugees in Turkey: the religious, historical, and pragmatic dimensions. First, I will examine the religious discourse produced over the refugee subjectivity. While analyzing this discourse, I will reveal how the Syrian refugees are positioned within the religious narrative of “ensar and muhacir”. As a second focus, I will examine the historical discourse. In this way, I will discuss the role of the narrative of the “ecdad” (ancestor) which signifies the responsibility towards refugees that is inherited from the Ottoman Empire. In the third focus, I will discuss the pragmatic discourse which is produced in the context of the foreign relations of Turkey. In the third section, I will analyze how the subjectivities of refugees are instrumentalized

38 depending on the diplomatic relations between Turkey and EU. Apart from these main dimensions, I will examine the discourse of citizenship which was recently put into circulation as the last focus.

4.1. Religious Discourse on the Production of Refugee Subjectivity The religious dimension is a significant part of the production of refugee subjectivity by the state discourse. Especially when the past experiences of migration in Turkey are considered, it becomes apparent that the emphasis on the religion within the state discourse came to the forefront by the arrival of the Syrian refugees in the period of AKP. This religious dimension ia especially shaped around the narrative of ensar and muhacir as one of the most prominent parts of the hospitality towards Syrians. Through this narrative, the prominent figures of AKP embed the hospitality to a historical context which is assumed to repeat again. Such an interpellation of a historical context to the present seeks to establish a connection between the contexts and actors.

Historically speaking, the category of muhacir refers to Muslim people who migrated to Madinah from Mecca, and the ensar connotes the local people of Medina who welcomed new-comers as religious fellows and helped them. According to the religious narrative, prophet Muhammed announced the religious fellowship between the ensar and muhacir that can be defined as host and guest respectively. The narrative is quoted in the Quran as: But those who have believed and emigrated and fought in the cause of Allah and those who gave shelter and aided - it is they who are the believers, truly. For them is forgiveness and noble provision. By referring to this narrative, the relation of hospitality takes on the new meaning of a religious duty. In this way, the humanitarianism is articulated with a moral responsibility and is carried to a more abstract level.

The narrative of ensar and muhacir appeared in the state discourse in many instances. However, the year of 2014 can be considered as the defining moment regarding the frequency of its usage. Even though this narrative was used in some examples before 2014, it is remarkable that the prominent figures of AKP started to

39 use it more frequently and in diverse contexts after 2014. In the state discourse, this narrative targets two main actors: Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees as ensar and muhacir respectively. Thus, when this narrative is used, it produces two kinds of subjectivities through creating a mediation between them.

The first usage of this narrative in political statements within the context of the Syrian refugees took place by prime minister Erdoğan just after the Reyhanlı bombings in Hatay province on 11 May 2013. Erdoğan gave a speech after a little while of the incident: Brothers, you have opened your arms to our 25 thousand siblings from Syria. Now, do not pay heed to those who strive to expel them from here. They are our siblings. They came here because they trust and believe us [...] We will be ensar, we will open our arms, we will never give credence to this discord and unrest (Haberler, 2013).1

The tension which was prevailing in the city especially due to its closeness to the Syria border came to a head after the bombing attack, and therefore Syrian refugees turned into the usual suspects in the eyes of the local people. Accordingly, the statement of Erdoğan should be considered within this context. With this statement and especially the emphasis on the narrative of ensar and muhacir, he aimed to inhibit the reactions of local people towards Syrians refugees. This statement evokes the meaning of being ensar and the requirements of being ensar as well. Erdoğan made a similar statement again when some local people in Kahramanmaras protested against Syrian refugees and demanded Syrians in the city to be expelled almost one year after the Reyhanlı bombings: “This nation has accepted to be ensar as its indispensable feature. But unfortunately, those who do it are unfortunate people. But we will continue to teach them humanity” (Erdoğan, 2014a).2

1 “Kardeslerim, siz 25 bin civarında Suriye'den buraya gelen kardeslerimize kucağınızı açtınız. Simdi onları buradan kovma gayreti içerisine girenlere itibar etmeyin, onlar bizim kardeslerimizidir, bize inandıkları, güvendikleri için buradalara geldiler [...] Ensar olacağız, kucaklayacağız, bu nifaka fitneye asla pirim vermeyeceğiz”. 2 “Bu millet ensar olmayı kendisinin vazgeçilmez özelliği olarak kabul etmistir. Ama bunu yapanlar ne yazık ki nasipsiz tiplerdir. Ama biz onlara da insanlık öğretmeye devam edeceğiz”.

40 The research made by HUGO (2015) in December 2014 reveals the size of the tension between the local people in the cities, especially in South-eastern Anatolia, and Syrians. According to the research, 47.5% of local people in these cities approved the reactions towards Syrians in their cities (p. 29). When the statements of Erdoğan is considered in the light of the data of research, it becomes clear that the narrative of ensar and muhacir is seen as an instrument for reducing the reactions towards Syrians.

As mentioned above, the narrative was put into circulation more intensely from 2014 on. One of the most significant reasons for this situation can be considered as the time that passed since the start of the migration of Syrians to Turkey and thus the changing perceptions concerning the staying of Syrians in Turkey. Even though Syrians were considered as people who are expected to return to their homeland are expected, their stay in Turkey created a de facto situation from the point of view of the state. The case of Syrian refugees which was initially approached with humanitarian concerns by state actors proceeded to another stage especially with the shattering of hopes concerning the end of the war in Syria. Within this context, we should also consider the significant policy changes in 2014. As we mentioned in the previous chapter, “Law on Foreigners and International Protection” (LFIP) was ratified on 4 April 2013 and came into force a year later in April 2014. Subsequently the “Temporary Protection Regulation” (TPR) was issued on October 2014. Thus, the legal status and rights of Syrians were shaped through the regime of temporary protection. Overall, the elapsed time since the beginning of the arrival of Syrians and the increase of the number of the people who continued to come influenced the discursive and policy model of the state.

The narrative became an instrument that the state used when it turns towards Syrians in Turkey as well. As the main layer of the religious construction of the refugee subjectivity, this narrative was employed to position Syrians as muhacirs. During the visit of Erdoğan to Islahiye tent city which is located in Gaziantep and was hosting approximately ten thousand Syrians refugees at that time, he referred to the narrative right after he was elected as the Prime Minister in 2014:

41 We, as Turkey, have been pleased and proud to admit you as guest for nearly four years. You were obliged to leave your country and became “Muhacir”. Hence, we became “Ensar” and mobilized all our means for you. No matter what they say, you are not a burden for us [...] You have given us both the privilege to be “Ensar” and you blessed our home (Erdoğan, 2014b).3

In this speech, it is seen evidently how the state discourse turned towards the Syrian refugees and placed them within a narrative and how the narrative is used within a bi-directionality. In this context, ensar is the person who does the favour, protects, and opens up his/her house, whereas muhacir is the person who comes to the home later and dignifies the host by his/her visit. The statement of Erdoğan becomes quite meaningful especially when we consider Derrida’s explication concerning the relation between the host and the guest over the new place. He defines this relation as: “The master thus enters from the inside as if he came from the outside. He enters his home thanks to the visitor, by the grace of the visitor” (Derrida, 2000: 125). Accordingly, this relation creates a mediation through which both the guest and host positions reciprocatively producing each other. Thus, more significantly, the host as the master of the place enters the home in a second time owing to the existence of the guest by this mediation. “The grace of the visitor”, as Derrida mentioned, is transformed into the privilege given to ensar by the muhacir in the statement of Erdoğan. Here, the subjectivity of Syrian is produced as being a guest that brings honor to the host by their stay in Turkey.

According to the analogy made by the ensar/muhacir duality, Syrian refugees find themselves in the position of muhacir similar with the immigrants in Medina, and therefore Turkey became ensar by their mediation. The fundamental element that constructs this mediation is the concept of “religious duty.” Thus, this concept not only forms the mediation between the state and Syrian refugees but also produces the differentiating point with regard to “others” who were expected to take

3 “Bizler Türkiye olarak yaklasık dört yıldır sizleri burada misafir etmenin memnuniyeti, sevinci ve haklı gururu içindeyiz. Sizler “Muhacir” oldunuz, mecburiyet içerisinde yurtlarınızı terk ettiniz, bizler de “Ensar” olduk sizin için tüm imkânlarımızı seferber ettik. Kim ne derse desin sizler bize asla yük değilsiniz [...] Siz hem bize “Ensar” olma vasfını bahsettiniz hem de evimizi bereketlendirdiniz”.

42 responsibility for the refugee crisis. Another speech of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from the year of 2014 highlights this distinguishing point: We opened our doors to our siblings who were fleeing from conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and mobilized our means. We now host more than 1.5 million people in our country. Why? This is our understanding of humanity, conscience, and Islam. That's why we did it. We could not leave them to the danger of terrorist acts, bullets, bombs. We could not leave them to murderous Assad regime. If they emigrated to this country, we were obliged to be an Ensar. And we did it. And we still do [...] At present there are only 130,000 asylum seekers in Europe, and Europe complains about it. But only in Turkey, there are 1.5 million asylum seekers. This is our difference compared to the West (Erdoğan, 2014c).4

By considering this quotation, it becomes clear that the statement is aimed towards both the national and international audiences. Thus, the identity of ensar has two functions at the same time. First, it is used to signify an acquired distinctiveness within the boundaries of religiosity. Protecting people who are in a difficult situation and thereby reaching the status of ensar is defined as a differentiating point in relation to Islam. Thus, the difference between “we” and “other” is constructed within the domestic policy. Being ensar by the mediation of the muhacir emerges as a crucial determinant of pre-eminence within the sense of Islam. Secondly, the status of ensar is employed to create the same differentiation with regards to foreign policy. The dichotomy between the “we” and the “other” is produced again by referring to Europe. Here, the sense of we-ness is reproduced in opposition to “others” who are marked as if they evade their responsibility. Thus, the other is transformed into the constitutive element of the inside as well. In sum, while the dichotomy serves to mold the public opinion in line with the position of the government towards Syrian refugees on the one hand; it highlights the difference between Turkey and Europe on the other hand.

4 “Irak ve Suriye’de çatısmalardan kaçan kardeslerimize de kapılarımızı açtık, imkânlarımızı seferber ettik. 1,5 milyonu askın insanı, su anda ülkemizde biz misafir ediyoruz. Niye? Bu bizim insanlık anlayısımızdır, vicdani anlayısımızdır, Islami anlayısımızdır. Biz bundan dolayı bunları yaptık. Onları terörist eylemlerin, kursunların, bombaların altında bırakamazdık. Katil, devlet terörü estiren bir Esed rejiminin altında bırakamazdık. Onlar, bu ülkeye Hicret ediyorlarsa, biz onlara Ensar olmaya mecburduk. Ve biz de bunu yaptık. Ve hala yapıyoruz [...] Su anda sadece Avrupa’da 130 bin sığınmacı var, Avrupa bundan dert yanıyordu. Ama sadece Türkiye’de, su anda 1,5 milyon sığınmacı var. Bizim farklılığımız Batıya göre, bu”.

43 Even though the statements of Erdoğan seem to be made towards the domestic public, he produces a transnational discourse by referring to the idea of taking responsibility. As Aras and Mencütek (2016) indicate, while the demand for the financial support from the EU was weakly expressing in 2012, the Turkish government increasingly started to emphasize the discourse of burden share by 2013. The main feature of this discourse produced in the following years was the “economization” of the process. Thus, the change of the discourse articulated with the narrative of the ensar and muhacir as can be seen in the statement of Erdoğan below: We are a nation with the consciousness of ensar. We regard every sibling who came our country as muhacir and we welcome them. We open them our homes, we share our bread with them. Today, we have about 2 million siblings who fled from the events in Syria and Iraq and came to our country [...] 2 million here, 130 thousand in Europe [...] When we come together, they are flattering us… Talk about money, money. You're not talking about any money. You don’t say “let this be our contribution to support you (Erdoğan, 2015).5

In 2016, Ahmet Davutoğlu emphasized the ensar and muhacir narrative along similar lines when he was in charge as the prime minister. In one of the group meetings of AKP, Davutoğlu mentioned the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey and the position of Turkey in relation to the Europe:” We do not beg anybody for money, gratitude, or help. So far, we have looked after our Syrian siblings with our own means, and we will take care of them in future. May God be pleased. We are ensar, and we will keep the consciousness of ensar and the spirit of Medina alive (Davutoğlu, 2016)”.6

Hence, while this narrative constructs the position of the Syrian refugees as the guests, it confirms the position of the host within a religious generosity in comparison with the “others” who do not adequately fulfil their responsibility as well. Besides, it could be argued that the Syrian refugees as muhacir gain a slippery position by the

5 “Biz ensar bilincine sahip bir milletiz. Ülkemize gelen her kardesimizi muhacir olarak görür, muhabbetle karsılarız. Onlara evimizi açar, ekmeğimizi bölüsürüz. Bugün sınırlarımız içinde Suriye ve Irak'taki olaylardan kaçarak ülkemize gelen yaklasık 2 milyon civarında kardesimiz bulunuyor [...]Burada 2 milyon, Avrupa'nın tamamında 130 bin [...] Bir araya geldiğimiz zaman bizi pohpohluyorlar… Paradan bahset, paradan. Hiç paradan bahsetmiyorsun, Bizden de bu kadar destek olsun' demiyorsun”. 6 “Biz kimseden ne para dileniriz, ne minnet, himmet bekleriz. Biz kendi imkanlarımızla su ana kadar Suriyeli kardeslerimize baktık, bundan sonra da bakarız. Allah razı olsun. Ensarız biz, ensar bilincini yasatırız, Medine’nin ruhunu yasatırız”.

44 mediation of other determinants. The feature that constructs the muhacir is not directly his/her subjectivity, but rather the mediation in which his/her is placed. Thus, the subjectivity of ensar begins to speak whenever muhacir is mentioned, and therefore the host reconfirms his/her identity as the owner of the space.

When the ensar and muhacir discourse is thought separately from the context in which it placed, it associates with the “unconditional law of hospitality” that Derrida discusses. According to Derrida, this kind of hospitality demands an ethical approach which excludes the expectation of any reciprocity. The frame of the discourse of hospitality is provided by indicating the religious fellowship as a given dimension of closeness. Thus, the religious fellowship establishes the frontiers of the ethical approach that the unconditional hospitality necessitates. Nevertheless, since hospitality is an activity that selects their guests and emplaces them within a discursive frontier, it turns into a political form which contains the conditionality in itself. Thus, it implies a relation by which the host constitutes itself by the mediation of the generosity that tends towards the guest. The subjectivity of the Syrian refugee is constructed by the discourse of the guest as being muhacir in this mediation. Besides, as can be seen, it becomes a subject through the talking of the host with “others”. Hence, this hospitality includes the very impossibility in itself. When the references concerning the economic burden accompanied by the discourse of hospitality are thought, it becomes clear that this hospitality is surrounded by various determinants. That is why hospitality as a pure ethical approach turns into an impossible idealization.

4.2. Historical Discourse on the Production of the Refugee Subjectivity Historical references are frequently used by prominent figures of AKP as the component of the hospitality towards Syrian refugees. Within this context, the narrative of ecdad comes to the forefront as the primary constituent of the historical dimension. The narrative of ancestor is based on the reference to the Ottoman heritage and serves the purpose of constructing a historical connection between the past as the desired time and the present. The emphasis on Ottoman heritage is generally employed to indicate the necessity to protect Syrians. Thus, it participates

45 to the structure of the hospitality as a cultural and geographic dimension. However, the reference to Ottoman Empire has another dimension aside from the production of hospitality since AKP government frequently underlines it within its political terminology. Even though the interpellation of the Ottoman heritage, which is called by many scholars as neo-Ottomanism (Çolak, 2006; Onar, 2009), is beyond the scope of this study, it is necessary to briefly mention the perception of the Ottoman heritage embraced by AKP.

The reference to the Ottoman heritage is directly linked with the conceptualization of the nation by AKP. Ahmet Davutoğlu, in Strategic Depth (2001), described the nation as a people sharing a common geographical area and cultures. According to Davutoğlu, the Ottoman heritage is the essence and inevitable characteristic of Turkey (p. 41). The comprehension of AKP’s pioneers was mostly shaped by the idea that the heritage of the Ottoman Empire was demolished with the establishment of the Republic; therefore, the essence must be revived and protected. According to this approach, the historical and geographical potential inherited from the Ottoman Empire would be considered as the frame for an active foreign policy.

The narrative of ecdad in relation to the Ottoman heritage has been used by the AKP government since the earlier stages of Syrian refugees’ influx. In this way, the discourse of hospitality is supported by cultural references to the Ottoman Empire as a symbol of power. In 2011, when the influx of Syrians began, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that “Syria is our internal affair” (TRT Haber, 2011).7 This statement reveals that the perception developed by AKP concerning the case of the Syrian refugees comprises both humanitarian and political dimensions. Especially, the foreign policy approach aimed at the legitimatization of cross-border responsibility grounds on references to the Ottoman past.

The approach of cross-border responsibility and the positioning of the influx of Syrian refugees within this context can be associated with the goal of showing the “soft

7 “Suriye bizim iç meselemizdir”.

46 power capabilities” of the state (Aras and Mencütek, 2016: 194). While the narrative of ancestor functions as the sign of the power of the state within international affairs, it is used to strengthen their position in the domestic politics as well. In 2012, Erdoğan emphasized the approach of cross-border responsibility by the narrative of ecdad during a group meeting of AKP: Here, I speak with the inspiration and heritage that I got from my ancestors. The Turkish nation which has a thousand-years-old state tradition is a nation that has changed the course of history [...] Together with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, , Egypt and others in this geographical region, we are close to each other as the fingers of the one hand [...] Those who are unaware of their ancestors cannot correctly analyze the AKP’s Syrian policy (Erdoğan, 2012a).8

The discourse of ancestor is also utilized in accepting Syrian refugees to the Turkey. During a group discussion of AKP, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used a historical anecdote to make an analogy between the past and the situation of Syrian refugees. According to this anecdote, the Tsar of Russia demanded that those who took refuge in the Ottoman lands to be sent back to Russia. Yet, the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire refused this request by indicating that it is a matter of honor. After Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told this historical anecdote, he continued: Hopefully, we will read the Fatiha at the head of the grave of Selahaddin Eyyubi and we will also have our prayers at the Umayyad Mosque [...] CHP will carry the shame of rudeness that it shows to the Syrian refugees in Turkey just as it is carrying the shame of 146 Azerbaijani brothers of the Boraltan bridge. We are the grandsons of such an ancestor. But, just as our ancestor carried the honor of embracing the oppressed for centuries, we will also carry the honor of welcoming our brothers and sisters forever and ever in our faces and hearts (Erdoğan, 2012b).9

8 “Ben burada tarihimden aldığım güçle, ecdadımdan aldığım ilham ve mirasla konusuyorum. Bin yıllık bir devlet geleneğine sahip olan Türk Milleti, tarihin akısını değistirmis bir millettir [...] Bu coğrafyada Irak, Suriye, Lübnan, Filistin, Mısır ve diğerleriyle biz bir elin parmakları kadar birbirimize yakınız [...] Kendi tarihinden, kendi ecdadından bihaber olanlar, iste bizim AKP’nin Suriye politikasını doğru analiz edemezler”. 9 “Insallah Selahaddin Eyyubi’nin kabri basında Fatiha okuyacak, Emevi Camiinde namazımızı da kılacağız [...] CHP bugün nasıl Boraltan Köprüsünün 146 Azeri gardasımızın lekesini yüzünde tasıyorsa, yarın da Türkiye’deki Suriyeli mültecilere gösterdiği kabalığın lekesini yüzünde tasıyacak. Biz, böyle bir ecdadın torunuyuz. Ama biz ecdadımız nasıl ki mazlumlara kucak açmanın gururunu yüzyıllar boyunca tasıdıysa, aynı sekilde kardeslerimize kucak açmanın gururunu ebediyen yüzümüzde, gönlümüzde tasıyacağız”.

47 When Erdoğan made the statement above in 2012, there was a discussion concerning the camps in Hatay. According to the discussion, a group of deputies from Republican People’s Party (CHP) was not authorized to enter the camp, where soldiers and polices, who escaped from the Syrian army, were settled. CHP deputies considered it as a suspicious situation concerning the transparency of the refugee camps. In response to this, Davutoğlu said that “this camp is different” and added that there were security concerns about the situation of this camp (Bianet, 2012). In the group meeting from which the statement above is cited, Erdoğan carried the issue to a more oppositional position against the attitude of CHP towards the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey. As can be seen in the statement, Erdoğan made a historical analogy by referring to the incident of Boraltan bridge. In 1945, Azerbajani soldiers from the were killed by a firing squad on the Boraltan bridge after they were returned to the Soviet Union by Turkey. When this analogy is thought together with the Erdoğan’s anecdote about the dispute between the Tsar of Russia and the ambassador of Ottoman Empire, it becomes evident how the discursive belonging to the Ottoman heritage is produced in the state discourse and how CHP as the opposition party is marked by disrespect to the Ottoman heritage.

The narrative of ancestor employs as the sign of the powerful state that protects refugees. Accordingly, the generosity of the state is positioned as a tradition that inherited from the past and should be brought to the future. While it is assumed that there is a straight line which lies from the past to the present, a relation of generosity just as in the case of ensar and muhacir is produced. Hence, the generosity is positioned as a per se characteristic of the envisagement of the state. Here, the relation between the guest and the host emerges once again. Thus, the feature that constituents the host is the generosity inherited from the ancestor, whereas the guest is defined as the person whose destiny is in the hands of the host.

As we discussed before, the year of 2014 was remarkable with regard to the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Just can be seen in the direct usage of the narrative of ensar and muhacir, the narrative of ancestor was also mentioned in a way that refers to the increasing number of Syrian refugees and therefore the possibility of their

48 permanent settlement in Turkey. During one of the group meetings of AKP in 2014, Erdoğan established a connection between the Ottoman heritage and Syrian refugees as: “We are a generation born upon the heritage left by the Ottoman Empire. [...] At this moment, the number of people coming from Syria to our country comes up to 1 million. Now, will we say let them die in Syria? How can we say that? Do we have such a right? I ask you! (Erdoğan, 2014d)”. 10

In the statement above, Erdoğan presents the ties to the Ottoman heritage as a reason to save and protect Syrian refugees. Thus, the responsibility is produced around a traditional sense of state power. Similarly, the Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also established a connection between the responsibility toward Syrian immigrants and the Ottoman heritage: “Today, thank God, we have embraced our 3 million siblings and opened our house and shared our food. We are not complaining about this. Because, we are the grandsons of the Ottoman Empire who made peace, fraternity, and order dominant in the world [...] this is what behooves to us (Yıldırım, 2016)”.11

Thus, the reference to the Ottoman past legitimizes the open-door policy of the government towards Syrian immigrants and it enhances the significance of the generosity that the state provides as well. By referring to the Ottoman heritage, a supra-state conceptualization of responsibility is employed, and thus the admission of Syrian refugees is defined not only as a humanitarian concern but also as a duty inherited from the ecdad.

When the Turkish migration policy is considered starting from the early republican period, it is important to consider the emphasis on both discursive dimensions as a

10 “Biz Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmaniye’nin bıraktığı miras üzerine gelmis bir nesiliz. [...] Iste su anda Suriye’den ülkemize gelenlerin sayısı neredeyse 1 milyona yaklasıyor. Simdi biz Suriye’den bize sığınan bu kardeslerimize kapılarımızı kapatıp Suriye’de ölün mü diyeceğiz, bunu diyebilir miyiz? Böyle bir hakkımız var mı, soruyorum sizlere!”. 11 “Bugün Allah’a sükür biz 3 milyon kardesimize kucak açtık, evimizi açtık, asımızı paylastık. Bundan da sikâyetçi değiliz. Çünkü biz [...] dünyada barısı, kardesliği, huzuru hâkim kılmıs Osmanlı’nın torunlarıyız, bize yakısan da budur”.

49 differentiating point in comparison with past experiences. As discussed previous chapter, the discourse of “soydas” that is used to refer migrants who are Turkish and Muslim from Balkan countries was the main narrative concerning to the admission of the new-comers for a long time. Even though those defined as soydas were at the highest ranks of the hierarchy of acceptance (Danıs and Parla, 2009), it did not mean that their position was fixed. Nonetheless, the principal feature that shapes the hierarchy of acceptance is the political atmosphere that necessitates the functional usage of the ethnicity and the religion at the same time. Nevertheless, it is clear that the hierarchy of acceptance skidded to a religion-based hospitality discourse particular to Syrian refugees. As a result, the guest narrative, reinforced with different discursive layers of hospitality, has become the dominant approach pertaining the mentioned hierarchy. Accordingly, not only were Syrian refugees situated in a different position compared to other immigrant groups but also the responsibility of the state towards refugees was redefined by referring to the traditional generosity.

The emphasis on both religious and historical dimensions accompany the discourse of hospitality and differ from past experiences concerning the admittance of migrants. Thus, there is a need to problematize the relationship between the nation state and the figure of the refugee. Agamben (1996: 161) defines the figure of refugee as a “disquieting element in order of nation state” and Saybasılı (2011: 32) considers it as a “haunting figure” in a similar vein. Hence, the point that should be problematized emerges as the relationship between the discourse of hospitality and the figure of the refugee within the nation state. In this respect, it could be argued that the state discourse has been shaping the figure of the refugee by confining him/her into the hospitality framework reinforced by the historical and religious metaphors. The host generously invites and places the guest in his/her own narrative. In consequence, the figure of the refugee is transformed into the “religiously accepted figure of the guest” within the state discourse.

50 4.3. Pragmatic Discourse on the Production of Refugee Subjectivity The flow of Syrian refugees has become a global issue which has affected both the domestic and foreign policies of countries since it is the largest mass migration in the world history. It has two significant results for the foreign policy of Turkey. First of all, Turkey, as a migration transition country since 1980s, has moved to a new era with the increasing number of immigrants trying to pass to Europe from its territory. For instance, according to the figures of UNHRC, a million migrants and refugees reached to Europe in 2015, and the number of people who entered to Greece from Turkey by crossing Aegean Sea was over 800,000 (UNHRC, 2015). Secondly, the discourse of “burden sharing” has gained a remarkable place within the foreign policy of Turkey as the country which hosts almost 3 million Syrians by the year of 2017. The financial burden of the hosting Syrians in Turkey has become an issue that frequently emerges in the statements of politicians at both domestic and foreign levels. Thus, these two impacts of the influx of Syrians has led to the emergence of the migration-centered diplomacy between Turkey and European countries.

The migration diplomacy between Turkey and EU has accelerated especially after the influx of Syrians to Europe. However, it should be noted that the migration centered diplomacy has particularly gain significance after the 2000s with the process of Turkey’s full membership to the EU. According to Accession Partnership Document signed between Turkey and the EU in 2001, Turkey was expected to adopt the EU’s migration policies including readmission of the illegal migrants. Nevertheless, the content of the document has become a controversial issue due to the increased number people who sought to reach to Europe through Turkey. This influx has evolved into a diplomatic conflict called as “the migration crisis” by the end of 2015. By the time, “the migration crisis” has emerged as one of the most salient negotiation issues between Turkey and EU countries. In 2013, the readmission agreement, signed between Turkey and the EU, aimed to prevent the illegal entrance of immigrants to the EU countries. According to the agreement, Turkey would take back the people who have illegally entered to the EU. In return, the EU would enable the possibility of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens. This agreement has constituted a major step towards the construction of a gift economy through refugees. It was an open

51 declaration of the reciprocal interests between two countries by the instrumentalization of refugees within the world of diplomacy.

The content of the migration-centered diplomacy has been enlarged and become detailed with the increase in the number of immigrants seeking to reach Europe in later periods. Thus, the migration-centered diplomacy between Turkey and the EU was transformed into an issue by which the reality of refugees is reduced to an object of bargain. As can be seen in the statements provided in the discussions of the narrative of ensar and muhacir, within the state discourse the European countries or the West in general was marked as the side that evades their responsibility. While the West was marked negatively, the attitude of government has tended to constitute a powerful and generous image of the Turkish state. As Tolay (2016) argues, the mass movements of populations can contribute to the state power by creating a positive image about it. Hence, the subjectivity of refugees functions as the evidence of the generosity and responsibility of the state. Tolay indicates that the hosting of Syrian refugees in Turkey is used as a means to create a strong image for the state and to reinforce Turkey’s position in the foreign relations and in the regional balance of power (p. 145). Thus, the migration-centered diplomacy between Turkey and the EU could be thought as an area wherein the state power is being consolidated.

By 2015, the diplomacy between Turkey and the EU has gained a momentum as a result of the striking increase in the number of people trying to reach EU countries over Turkey. The main discussion during the European Council Meeting, held on October 15th 2015, was the influx of immigrants into Europe. Apart from the investment of €3 billion to be used for refugees in Turkey, the acceleration of the visa exemption for Turkish citizens and the opening of new chapters in the way of the EU membership process of Turkey have entered to the request list of Turkey in this meeting. These demands which are unrelated to the situation of Syrian refugees reveals how the mass movement of population is used in a pragmatic and also opportunistic way by the Turkish state. Thus, these requests have constructed a pragmatic exchange relation that would determine the subsequent meetings.

52 The EU-Turkey Summit, held on November 29th 2015, was a decisive moment regarding this pragmatic exchange relationship. Actors of this diplomatic bargain gathered particularly to draw a plan on refugee crisis. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, proclaimed the objective of the meeting as: “Handling the migration crisis was the immediate reason for our meeting today. Approximately 1.5 million people have illegally entered the EU in 2015. Most have come through Turkey. Some seek shelter from war and persecution. Others seek a better life. And a few seek to destroy our values” (Tusk, 2015).12 Davutoğlu, the foreign minister, interpreted the summit as "a historic meeting, the first meeting of this kind since 11 years" and also added: “Turkish citizens would be able to travel visa-free to EU countries in the passport-free Schengen area by October 2016” (Daily Sabah, 2015).”13 The statement of Tusk demonstrates how the EU approaches the migration with security-based concerns. However, the statement of Davutoğlu illustrates the emphasis on the political concerns which are not directly connected to the refugees. Accordingly, the subjectivity of the refugees is transformed into a trump card by which the diplomatic power of Turkey is strengthened within foreign relations.

The instrumentalization for a list of requests is one side of the pragmatic production of the refugee subjectivity as we have seen in the quotations above. Nevertheless, the instrumentalization as a threat is another prominent approach within the pragmatic production of the refugee subjectivity. One month before of the readmission agreement, signed between Turkey and the EU on March 18th 2016, Erdoğan has addressed the issue with the following statement: How much did you give for refugees to Turkey, which has spent about 10 billion dollars for these refugees? $ 455 million. [...] Sorry, but the word of “gullible” is not written on our forehead. Do what should be done. We show patience as much as we do, but then would do what is necessary. Don’t think that the

12 “Bugünkü toplantımızın birincil nedeni göçmen krizini yönetmek. 2015 yılında, neredeyse 1.5 milyon insan Avrupa’ya yasadısı olarak girdi. Bunların çoğu Türkiye üzerinden geldi. Bazıları savas ve zulümden kaçarak sığınak arıyor. Diğerleri daha iyi bir hayat pesinde. Ve birkaçı da değerlerimizi yok etmeye çalısıyor”. 13 “Türkiye vatandasları 2016 Ekim ayından itibaren Schengen bölgesindeki ülkelere visesiz seyahat edebilecek”.

53 planes and the buses are here for nothing. We will do what is necessary (Erdoğan, 2016a).14

This statement indicates that the refugees are delineated as objects, which could be used as a tactical tool. Here, the statement of Erdoğan pertains directly to the issue of the burden sharing concerning the refugees. However, as can be seen, the statement involves a threat by the mass transfer of refugees to Europe. Greenhill (2010) calls the instrumentalization of migration with political goals in foreign policy as “strategic engineered migration” (p. 117). Accordingly, the threat of sending refugees to Europe corresponds to a discursive engineering in favour of the diplomatic power of Turkey. By producing the subjectivity of the refugee as a threat for Europe, Turkey’s position within the diplomatic gift economy is aimed to be strengthened. As Bourdieu (1990) argues, the thing that constructs the gift relation is not an “automatic law” but rather the uncertainty over which the participants aim to change the gift by manipulative strategies (p. 99-100). Here, hosting Syrian refugees changes into a pier that shapes the expected responses to the achievement of a diplomatic power in the face of the EU, as well as further contributions concerning the burden sharing. Thus, the refugees are encircled by a negative sense while the actors seek to maximise their interests.

The instrumentalization of refugees as a threat was primarily used within the state discourse when the relations between Turkey and the EU have become tense. One of the most striking examples of such a conjuncture has come in sight when the EU acutely criticised Turkey due to the political atmosphere after the failed coup attempt in July 2016 and proposed the suspension of Turkey’s EU membership negotiations. Shortly before the voting in the EU Parliament for the suspension of negotiations, Erdoğan again has brought up the issue of refugees in Turkey: You never acted honestly with people, you did not look after people. When the small Aylan hit the beaches on the Mediterranean coast, you did not go there

14 “Su ana kadar 10 milyar dolara yakın bu mülteciler için para harcamıs olan Türkiye’ye, bu mülteciler için sen ne kadar destek verdin? 455 milyon dollar [...] Bizim alnımızda enayi yazmıyor kusura bakmayın, bu isin hakkı neyse bunu yapın. Biz bir yere kadar sabır gösteririz, ondan sonra da gereği neyse bunu yaparız. Herhalde otobüsler bosuna durmuyor, uçaklar bosuna durmuyor, gereği neyse ondan sonra o yapılır”.

54 and take her. [...] We are the ones who fed 3 million, 3.5 million refugees in this country. You have not fulfilled your promises. When 50 thousand refugees reached to the Kapıkule border crossing, you started to worry about what you would do if Turkey opens its borders. If you go any further, these border gates will be opened. Neither my people nor I will be affected by these empty threats (Erdoğan, 2016b).15

In Erdoğan’s discourse, the refugees, once categorized as guests within the domestic policy discourse, now was transformed into a compelling tool in foreign policy. As Mauss (1990) discusses, no gift is self-appointed and every gift exists with a burden attached. The exchange relation produced between Turkey and EU is shaped around the burden reinforced by the existence of the Syrian refugees. Thus, refugees are reduced to a determinant that constituents the severity of the burden. The political discourse reproduces the uncertainty in which refugees find themselves while the politicians acts in line with their political interests. The diplomatic gift economy gives new meanings to the refugees as the population that is kept under control depending on the interest of the host.

4.4. The Discourse of Citizenship as the Game-changer The right of the citizenship is the basis of the nation-states and it is granted trough kinship or birth. However, for refugees as new comers, it becomes an issue that is directly linked with the perception of permanence and the integration policies of states. Thus, the discussion of citizenship corresponds to an important step with regards to the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey. The citizenship for the Syrian refugees has been brought forward for the first time in July 2016 by President Erdoğan. During an Iftar meal organization in Kilis, he said: Those who do not know themselves, their beliefs, history, and culture have no idea what homeland is. All of my ensar and muhacir siblings here are well aware of what the homeland is all about. [...] I want to give good news to my brothers here tonight. I believe that among our brothers and sisters there are some who

15 “Hiçbir zaman siz insanlığa dürüst davranmadınız, insanlara doğru bakmadınız. Aylan bebekleri Akdeniz kıyılarında sahile vurduğu zaman oradan gidip siz almadınız [...] 3 milyon, 3,5 milyon mülteciyi bu ülkede besleyen biziz. Verdiğiniz sözleri yerine getirmediniz. Kapıkule’ye 50 bin mülteci dayandığı zaman feryat ettiniz, acaba Türkiye sınır kapılarını açarsa ne yaparız demeye basladınız. Bana bak, eğer daha da ileri giderseniz bu sınır kapıları da açılır, bunu da bileseniz. Öyle kurusıkı tehditlerden ne ben anlarım, ne bu millet anlar; bunu da bilesiniz”.

55 want to become citizens of the Republic of Turkey. Our interior ministry is taking steps in that regard. We will pave the way for citizenship to our brothers and sisters by following with an office that our ministry has established (Haberturk, 2016).16

Erdoğan made this statement in Kilis that is a province of Gaziantep. Kilis province is exceptional owing to the population density of Syrian refugees compared to local people. According to the report published in 2016 by Directorate General of Migration, Syrian refugees constitute 94% of the population in Kilis province (Göç Idaresi Genel Müdürlüğü, 2016). Thus, the statement of Erdoğan has also a symbolic meaning when the specificity of Kilis is considered. As can be seen in the statement, Erdoğan reproduced the narrative of ensar and muhacir over the awareness of homeland and linked them with the discourse of citizenship. However, there was not any reference to the criteria that will be determinant about citizenship. After a little while, he specified the issue during another speech: “There are so many highly qualified people among them. We don’t prefer let them go to England or Canada” (Hürriyet, 2016).17 As can be seen, the expressions within the discourse of citizenship reveal a contrast with the pragmatic discourse produced in foreign relations. The refugees are defined as a population that would be sent while addressing to European countries whereas they turn into a population from whom Turkey would benefit while addressing to Turkish citizens.

The discourse of citizenship is a particular stage regarding the perception about the refugee’s stay in Turkey. More clearly, it is the clearest expression of the possibility to stay permanently in Turkey. Therefore, the citizenship arises as a discursive game- changer when the uncertainty that surrounds refugees is considered. Nevertheless,

16 “Kendini bilmeyenlerin, inancını, tarihini, kültürünü bilmeyenlerin vatan diye bir derdi elbette olmaz. Burada bulunan muhacir ve ensar tüm kardeslerim, vatanın ne demek olduğunu onlar çok iyi biliyorlar [...] Ben bu aksam burada kardeslerime bir müjde vermek istiyorum. Kardeslerimizin içinde inanıyorum ki Türkiye Cumhuriyeti vatandası olmak isteyenler var, konuyla ilgili olarak Içisleri Bakanlığı'mızın attığı adımlar var. Ellerinden geleni bakanlığımız olusturduğu bir ofisle takip etmek suretiyle bu kardeslerimize vatandaslık imkanını vereceğiz”. 17 “Bunların içinde çok kalifiye insanlar var, kalifikasyonu yüksek insanlar var, kariyer sahibi insanlar var. Biz almayalım da Ingiltere'ye, Kanada'ya, suraya, buraya mı gitsin”.

56 the citizenship also accompanies the uncertainty since it is presented as the grace of the state.

According to the Turkish citizenship law, the person who unremittingly stayed in Turkey with a residence permit for five years may apply for Turkish citizenship. Nevertheless, the duration that Syrian immigrants spent in Turkey is not evaluated as the valid residence period as it is indicated in Temporary Protection Regulation Article no.25. Their stay in Turkey is considered within the context of residence under the temporary protection, and thus the possibility to apply for Turkish citizenship by their own will is stonewalled. Accordingly, the citizenship mentioned in the statements corresponds to the exceptional citizenship. Within the context of Syrian refugees, this exceptional citizenship implies that those who have a higher education level might deserve to be the citizens of Turkey.

Arendt (1973) argues that nation-states are based on the notion of citizenship which gives "the right to have rights" (p. 296). Therefore, according to her, the thing that defines the position of the refugee is transformed into the absence of these rights providing the entrance to the family of the nation. As can be seen in the statements of Erdoğan, the Syrian refugees are invited by the host to be incorporated into this family. However, the citizenship is considered with a skill-based approach by which the host selects the desired ones. Thus, the citizenship as “the right to have rights” becomes an exceptional case of the generosity of the host. In this way, the distance between the citizenship and the political subjectivity of the refugees is widened as well.

Hospitality, as an invitation of the host, categorizes the guest according to desired and undesired features. The involvement in terms of the qualifications reveals two aspects of hospitality at the same time: “the exclusive and violent” and “the inclusive and generous”, as argued by Derrida (2000: 15). Accordingly, the guest is admitted into the family of the nation in terms of her desired features whereas the others become the undesirable ones who are expected to return to their home. The frontiers of the inclusion produce the frontiers of the exclusion as well. Even if the

57 exclusion does not rigorously become concrete, an exclusive inclusion, by referring to Agamben (1998: 107), is generated within the frontiers drawn by the hospitality.

Another important aspect of the discussion of citizenship is the temporality. As Bourdieu discusses, the gift relation does not shape around an automatic law wherein the interest does not reveal itself obligatorily in an immediate way (Bourdieu, 1990: 98) but the temporality determines the feature of the gift. The citizenship to Syrian refugees is an issue that has gained currency five years after the influx of Syrians began. Hence, it demonstrates the tactical approach of the state agenda that goes beyond the automatic law and manipulates the feature of the gift. The citizenship, as such, has a potential to reproduce the hierarchy between the guest and the host and therefore the benevolence of the state and the gratitude of the refugee.

Consequently, the very condition that constructs the subjectivities of Syrian refugees in Turkey is the shifting of the state discourse depending on the interests of the host. The main characteristic of the state discourse is the reproduction of the guest and the host and thus protected and protector positions over the uncertainty at discursive level. While the religious and historical narratives reinforce the hospitality toward Syrian refugees, they restrict refugees within “the religiously accepted figure of the guest”. By this way, the Syrian refugees are positioned within a generosity- based approach that functions as a tool to confirm the sovereignty of the host by the mediation of the guest. In a similar vein, the instrumentalization of refugees within the cross-border gift economy confines them over a slippery ground shaped, highly dependent on the political interests of the host. Even though the discourse of citizenship is seen as a game-changer in the long term, it also accompanies the uncertainty owing to the absence of a right-based approach. Thus, the uncertainty becomes the significant determinant of the production of refugee subjectivities in several ways both within the domestic and foreign policy of Turkey.

58

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION

Turkey has faced with the mass migration waves with different characters since its foundation. The attitudes and responses of the Turkish state towards these waves have changed mostly depending on the political interest or disinterest of the governments. However, the only unchanging policy was the lack of the consistent structural mechanisms to respond these waves.

The Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are significant international components for protecting people who became refugee with various reasons. Nevertheless, Turkey applied the limited version of the Geneva Convention and also UNHRC has a restricted role over state’s asylum policies. Thus, the ad hoc policies, dependent on the changing attitudes of governments, were transformed into the key determinants of the asylum policy of Turkey. In Turkey, the lack of the universal approach to the admission of the refugees discloses two main points with regard to the attitudes of governments: a reluctance or a generosity shaped by the domestic and foreign political concerns. Besides, historical, ethnical and religious references constitute the important factors that influence the level of the reluctance and generosity towards the new-comers.

The state discourse is an important field of study to understand how the new-comers are put inside the frontiers of the nation-state. While examining the state discourse, one has the possibility to trace the changing frontiers of the discursive area which are shaped by both the political concerns and featured references. Accordingly, the discursive area shows the structure of the production of the subjectivities concerning the new-comers.

The influx of Syrian refugees constitutes a unique case owing to several reasons. The most striking reason is its place in the world history. As I stated in the introduction, it

59 is one of the biggest humanitarian crises that millions of people has been obliged to leave their home. The geographic and temporal extension of the case has revealed a challenge for host societies. Besides, the influx of Syrian refugees corresponds to a unique example for the migration history of Turkey. The main criteria to be admitted to Turkey, defined as the belonging to Turkish descent and culture was replaced with the religious based hospitality discourse after the influx of Syrian refugees.

This thesis examined the constitution of the subjectivities of Syrian refugees in various contexts and imaginaries constructed within the state discourse. It analyzed the shifts within the discourses of AKP politicians on the Syrian refugees speaking to diverse audiences in different periods and places. I determined three main dimensions that shape the state discourse: religious, historical, and pragmatic dimensions. I discussed these dimensions as significant components of frontiers wherein the subjectivities of Syrian refugees are produced. Even though each of them produces the contexts oriented to the Syrian refugees, they do not present a coherent feature since they are mostly shaped by the political concerns of the politicians. Thus, the subjectivities of Syrian refugees are produced within these dimensions by being highly dependent on the political conjunctures and the audiences. Accordingly, these dimensions, as a whole, reinforce a ground of uncertainty for Syrian refugees even if they seem to complete each other in some instances.

The narrative of ensar and muhacir emerges as the religious dimension of the state discourse towards Syrian refugees. This narrative produces the position of the host and the guest around the conceptualization of the religious duty and also serves as the religious reference point concerning the constitution of the self and the other. Within this discourse, Syrian refugees are positioned under the homogeneous category of muhacir and restricted as the “religiously accepted figure of the guest”. By this way, the Syrian refugees are positioned within a generosity based approach that functions as a tool for confirming the sovereignty of the host by the mediation of the guest. Besides, the narrative of ecdad constitutes the historical dimension of the state discourse towards Syrian refugees. This narrative positions the generosity

60 as the per se characteristic of the state tradition which is assumed to be inherited from the Ottoman Empire. Within this discourse, the host, thus the Turkish state, is described by the generosity that is inherited from the ancestors and the guests, thus Syrian refugees, are represented as the victims whose destiny is in the hands of the host. The pragmatic dimension of the state discourse rises in the relations between EU and Turkey. In foreign policy, Syrian refugees are converted into the means for the diplomatic bargaining with the European Union. As a result, the refugees are transformed into a mere population whose position and movement are reduced to an issue of the diplomatic gift economy.

In consequence, the very condition that constructs the subjectivity of Syrian refugees in Turkey is the changes in the state discourse depending on the interests of the host. Therefore, the uncertainty employs as the main determinant of “the making-up Syrian refugeeness” in several ways both within the domestic and foreign policy of Turkey. The content of the uncertainty changes according to the direction that state discourse turns towards, though the only unchanging thing is the continuation of the uncertainty. As I tried to discuss, the state discourse conduces to the production of different contexts to which Syrian refugees are placed in the direction of the self- interests.

61

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